A look back at where the Huskers stood on this weekend the past decade

Inspired by the Westerkamp Hail Mary, and media members putting forth the notion that this is the first November, a typical make or break month, that’s mattered in quite some time: I thought it’d be interesting to look back and see what was going on the last 10 seasons at this point and contrast the current state of NUFB. Nebraska currently controls its own destiny in regards to a bowl, and the division at large. So how often has that happened over the last decade?

2022: Entering at 3-5, wedged between top 25 matchups against Illinois and @ Michigan, Minnesota was seen as a “must win” for NU to retain a bowl berth. Nebraska built a 10 point lead, mostly on the back of Anthony Grants 115 yards. But Chubba Purdy was injured early, and Logan Smothers 5/10 for 80 yards wasn’t enough to overcome a Minnesota rally and Nebraska was more or less eliminated from a bowl on their home field with Michigan and their expert scouting team looking. A 7 point loss stung

2021: In what’s easily the worst season in NU history, despite being +19 in scoring margin, Nebraska finds itself losers of 5 of the last 6 and needing 3 straight wins against #5 Ohio State, #15 Wisconsin and #16 Iowa to secure a bowl berth. Things are clearly bleak. Jaxon Smith-Njigba put up a fantastic performance for OSU, with 240 yards on 15 catches. Samori Toure would put up a great individual performance of his own, with 150 yards and a TD on just 4 catches. Nebraska made the game 23-17 as the 3rd quarter expired, but a missed FG and a punt after a negative yards 3 and out would be the only two chances Nebraska had before an OSU FG with under 2:00 left broke the one score loss curse. Nebraska would finish the season on a 6 game losing streak

2020: The covid season was wild. The week before, Wisconsin decided to sit out the NU game, due to a Covid outbreak. So Nebraska got a bye between road games @ OSU and @ Northwestern. Nebraska built a small lead off the back of 2 short field goals and an even shorter Dedrick Mills TD run going into half. Northwestern would score twice in the 2nd half, and powered by a redzone pick by Martinez, and a goal line pick by Luke McCaffrey, Nebraska once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Nebraska saw the ball 5 times in the second half, punting twice, intercepted twice and down’d once. Despite winning 2 of the last 3, Nebraska for whatever reason declined a bowl.

2019: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Nebraska needs 2 of the last 4 games to make a bowl, against a manageable schedule. A visit to West Lafayette set NU up with a fantastic opportunity to do so. In what I personally consider the worst sequence of Frosts tenure. Nebraska human unit Darrion Daniels intercepted 3rd string QB Jack Plummer and returned the ball to the Purdue 1, with Nebraska already up 7-0. The next 4 plays are probably the most maddening that I can remember. An Martinez incomplete pass was followed up by a 5 yard sack, Martinez then carried for 5 yards to the 1 again. On 4th and goal from the 1, Nebraska wasn’t able to get the play in, and took a delay of game instead, to kick a FG and settle for a 10-0 lead. Those 4 points would come back to haunt Nebraska, as a back and forth contest saw Purdue 4th string walk on and future very good QB Aiden O’Connell lead the winning TD drive with just over 1:00 remaining. Nebraska would lose by the same margin they left on the field at the 1 earlier 31-27

2018: Strange, the passage of time. Nebraska walked into a buzzsaw in Columbus for the annual OSU beat down, losing the last 2 matchups by a combined score of 118-17. But Nebraska looked GOOD. Despite the awful start to the season, this was what a Scott Frost team looked like. Going toe to toe with OSU in the shoe. Adrian Martinez hit his best pass as a husker, a TE slip hurt OSU twice. Nebraska led at halftime. It was a loss, and one that wasn’t AS close as the final score indicates, but this game showed what Nebraska was going to look like under Frost in 2019 and for the next 20 years (haha just kidding)

2017: Nebraska AGAIN walked into November with a chance at a bowl. 4 games, 2 wins. 5-3 Northwestern and 4-5 Minnesota loomed. The Nebraska offense could only muster a FG in the second half, and the lead was buoyed by a Marcus Newby pick 6. Nebraskas *fantastic* defense under Bob Diaco again squandered that late lead. Northwestern scored with 5:00 to head to OT. Nebraska would follow up a Northwestern TD with a 4 and out, and this painful loss was directly before 3 straight games surrendering 54, 56 and 56 points in what’s probably the worst 3 game stretch in school history. Mike Riley was fired a month later

2016: Hey look a good season! Nebraska, fresh off a screw job in Madison where the then undefeated #7 Huskers took Wisconsin to OT and should’ve won, walked into Columbus for the 7:00 ABC primetime game. #10 Nebraska was primed for an upset, after the previous seasons shocking result, there was a chance. If Nebraska was going to secure a NY6 bowl and B10 west championship, it was happening tonight against #6 OSU … and Nebraska is down 7-0 1:30 into the game after an OSU pick 6. Down 31-3 at half, with starting QB Tommy Armstrong being stretchered off the field, things got worse as Curtis Samuel would take the first play of the 3rd quarter 75 yards, and Nebraska was done. 62-3. Nebraska actually rebounded the season well, beating Minnesota and Maryland back to back before another blowout at Iowa and in the last husker bowl vs Tennessee.

2015: Talk about a bizzare 2 week sequence. On Halloween, Nebraska lost to then 1-6 Purdue by 10. A literal Halloween nightmare, followed up by a home visit against #7 Michigan State, led by Heisman contender Connor Cook. Nebraska kept it close for a while, but a Tommy Armstrong pass was picked in the endzone, and MSU built a 31-20 lead to close the 3rd quarter, and a Nebraska team that couldn’t finish games didnt seem primed to finish this one. Nebraska and MSU traded scores, and MSU built a 12 point lead this time with just 4 minutes remaining. A strange MSU kick led to a nice return for fan favorite Andy Janovich to midfield. Two 3rd and long conversions led to a 1 yard Armstrong run with just under 2:00 to play. After a failed onside, the Nebraska defense bowed up, and forced an MSU punt. 55 seconds, 91 yards and no timeouts. Michigan State played a prevent to beat all prevents, and Jordan Westerkamp picked up 61 yards on 2 catches taking just 18 seconds. The next play lives in Husker lore. Off his back foot, to the northwest corner of the endzone, Armstrong floated a ball to former walk on Brandon Reilly and despite stepping out of bounds Reilly was ruled as forced out. Nebraska scored with :17 left to take a 39-38 lead and held on as Cook threw the ball away before they could try a Hail Mary. Nebraska would follow up with a win over Rutgers and a loss to Iowa in an ugly game, before being invited to the Foster Farms Bowl and beating future B10 rival UCLA

2014: 7-1 turned to 8-1 for the veteran led Huskers. Ameer Abdullah was sidelined most of the game after his amazing performance the week prior, but #15 Nebraska mostly sleep walked through this one, winning 35-14. Nebraska needed to win 2/3 against Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa to close the season and play for the B10 title. The following week, they gave up a then NCAA record for rushing yards in a game to Melvin Gordon, and let Minnesota score late to force a a tie going into rivalry week. Nebraska needed a win v Iowa and a Wisconsin loss to Minnesota to head to Indy. Nebraska did it’s job, walking off in Iowa City in overtime. But Wisconsin rode a 10 game winning streak against Minnesota to their date with OSU. In hindsight, Nebraska was getting beat equally as bad as Wisconsin did in their 59-0 route vs the eventual national champ. But Nebraska capped a 9-3 season with another bowl loss to USC, and Bo was on the outs

2013: The Hail Mary game. We all know what happened here, so I’ll talk more about the season at large. Probably the most average Pelini team. They won 8 games, but most weren’t happy with the product. 2012 was a better team and lost in the title game by 6 TDs. 2014 was a better team but didn’t make the title game and got Pelini canned. An easy schedule led to those 8 wins in 2013. With losses to UCLA giving up 38 straight points, eventual Rose Bowl champ Michigan State in Lincoln in a game that was never close and getting blown out by Iowa at home. A head scratching loss to Minnesota, and poor performances against Wyoming and Northwestern in wins certainly didn’t help the narrative. Although anytime you beat Michigan in Ann Arbor and Penn State in Happy Valley it’s hard to say the team wasn’t good. Nebraska would win the Gator Bowl against UGA, avenging their loss the year prior. But this Husker team, despite its record, was one of “well this was fine” teams. Something a lot of fans would learn to regret later on

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