As I’ve tried to figure out how the 2022 season will play out for Nebraska football, my head has been spinning. New coaches! New players! New offense and special teams! It’s all new.
Or is it?
When I think about 2022, I have this persistent sense of déjà vu. An unshakable feeling like we have been here before.
I know this is the 2022 season, but when I look at some of the storylines around this team, I’m convinced it could be one of several different seasons from NU’s history.
The question is what year is it?
Is it 2003?
The end of the 2002 season was – at the time – a low point in the modern history of Nebraska Football. The team finished 7-7, the first non-winning season in 40 years. Some longtime assistants retired. Others were fired. Many fans wanted the head coach – a beloved former player – fired too.
The 2003 team started off 5-0. New defensive coordinator Bo Pelini had the Blackshirts playing great. The team finished with a 9-3 record, which looked great on paper. But those three loses – by an average of 24 points – in the three biggest games of the season (Missouri, Texas and Kansas State) kept NU from winning the Big XII North. They were used as ammunition by those who thought it was time to move on from Frank Solich.
Solich supporters argued that the new staff needed time to gel, and deserved another season to get Nebraska back to their extremely high standards.
The athletic department was led by a first-year AD, a NU alumnus who had the blessing of Tom Osborne and the vast majority of fans. That AD famously said that he refused to “let the program gravitate into mediocrity,” and Frank Solich was fired.
Is it 2006?
Bill Callahan’s 2006 squad featured his best offense, led by a transfer QB and several productive wide receivers. Four different running backs had at least 70 carries. The defense – led by playmaking linebackers and rush ends – was solid. The special teams weren’t stellar, but they definitely weren’t a liability.
While they lost the marquee nonconference game, they still had a 6-1 record and top 20 ranking in mid-October. The Huskers lost two tough games in a row, including a two-point loss to the #5 team in the country. Doubt for the season started to creep in.
But the Huskers rebounded with three straight November wins to clinch the division title. Even though NU lost in the Big XII Championship Game and Cotton Bowl, optimism was high for the 2007 season. Unfortunately, everything fell apart.
Is it 2007?
If the 2006 team was the pinnacle of the Callahan era, 2007 was when it all came crashing down. A primetime blowout loss to #1 USC was when the “check engine” light first appeared on the dashboard. A one-point win over Ball State the following week was like a whisp of smoke coming from under the hood. The wheels came off in a nationally televised five-touchdown loss at #17 Mizzou.
But the next game, homecoming, against a mediocre 3-3 Oklahoma State team, is still recognized as one of the lowest points of the post-Osborne era of Nebraska football. It was 38-0 at halftime, a score that barely does justice to how poorly NU played. Athletic Director Steve Pederson was fired the following week.
That 2007 team didn’t go quietly into the night. For every embarrassing loss they made Husker fans endure (such as 76-39 to Kansas), they had an equally wild 73-31 blowout over Kansas State and a near upset at #17 Texas.
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Callahan’s 2007 team went 5-7, and he was fired after surrendering 65 points to Colorado.
Is it 2016?
In 2015, Mike Riley’s Huskers finished the regular season a disappointing 5-7. It’s worth noting that six of NU’s seven losses came by one score (8 points) or less. Despite their losing record, the Huskers managed to secure an invite to the Foster Farms Bowl based on their APR academic score. NU beat UCLA in the bowl game.
In 2016, NU started hot, winning their first seven games and moving up to #7 in the AP poll. A last minute, one-score loss at #11 Wisconsin – followed by an ugly 62-3 blowout at #6 Ohio State – killed that momentum. The Huskers bounced back to beat Minnesota and Maryland. The season ended with two more convincing losses: at Iowa and versus Tennessee in the Music City Bowl – Nebraska’s most recent bowl game.
The 2016 Huskers ended up 3-1 in one-score games. At 9-4 overall, there was optimism that NU would continue to improve in 2017.
Is it 2017?
In the summer of 2017, all anybody could talk about was Nebraska quarterback Tanner Lee. The Tulane transfer was reputed to have an NFL-caliber arm and would be able to improve upon the 9-4 season NU posted in 2016.
In the first quarter of a September home game against Northern Illinois, Lee threw two pick-six interceptions. NU trailed 14-0 at half and lost 21-17. Athletic Director Shawn Eichorst was fired a few days later. Lee threw for 3,143 yards and 23 TDs, but had 16 interceptions. On the other side of the ball, first-year defensive coordinator Bob Diaco led a historically bad defensive unit. The no-business-being-known-as-Blackshirts finished 13th or 14th in the conference in 10 different statistical categories.
It is not fair to accuse a team of quitting on a season. Therefore, we’ll just observe that after an overtime loss to Northwestern, the Huskers lost their final three games by a combined score of 166-79. Their final record (4-8) was – at the time – the worst season by a Nebraska team since 1961. Meanwhile in Orlando, Scott Frost was leading Central Florida to an undefeated season.
The 2017 season ended with a 42-point loss to Iowa – the largest margin of defeat in that series. New Athletic Director Bill Moos fired Mike Riley the day after the Iowa game and hired Scott Frost a week later.
Is it 1961?
Let’s close out by hopping into the Wayback Machine. In 1960, the Huskers went 4-6 under coach Bill Jennings, his fourth straight losing season. Five of those 10 games were decided by a single score (Jennings went 3-2 in those one-score games, including upsets of #4 Texas, Army and Oklahoma). I assume those upsets played a big role in the decision to bring Jennings back for the 1961 season.
The 1961 team started off with convincing wins over North Dakota and the purple-clad Wildcats of Kansas State. Throw in a 14-14 tie against Arizona, and the Huskers were averaging 23.7 points per game in their first three games.
Their fourth game was against a tough nonconference foe: Syracuse, led by Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis. Injuries caused the offense to struggle mightily for the remainder of the season. The Huskers scored a total of 48 points in the final seven games, being shut out twice. In a 7-0 loss to Colorado, the Huskers ran for a total of 31 yards and did not record a single first down.
Bill Jennings was fired after the season. His .310 winning percentage remains the worst of any Nebraska coach who led the Huskers for more than two seasons. Scott Frost is currently second at .341.
Wyoming’s Bob Devaney was hired to take over the Nebraska program in 1962, going 9-2 in his first season. The Homecoming game against Mizzou was sold out, as was the next home game against Oklahoma State.
And the rest is history.
Maybe the 2021 team should repeat what the 1962 squad did. I like that idea the best.
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