Nebraska looks out of sorts in loss to Indiana: Amie Just

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Some day, Nebraska will beat a ranked team.

Some day, Nebraska will end its bowl drought and get a sixth win.

Saturday was not that day. No, Saturday was an absolute disaster for Nebraska.

No. 16 Indiana punked Nebraska, demolishing the Huskers 56-7 in a game that somehow felt even more lopsided than that.

Where do we even begin here? This game was a masterclass in offensive, defensive and special teams malpractice.

Honestly, nearly everything was bad. Honestly, it was disappointing. It was embarrassing. Top to bottom. Beginning to end.

The Hoosiers made the Blackshirts look like Swiss cheese. Nebraska’s offense, despite recording 304 yards of total offense, looked completely out of sorts. Nebraska’s special teams units, once again, could not stop making costly mistakes.

My, mostly negative, thoughts on Nebraska’s second loss of the season.

Coming into Saturday, Indiana had the No. 4 ranked offense after averaging 515.7 yards per game through its first six contests.

Surely the Hoosiers couldn’t post that against one of the top defenses in the country?

The Hoosiers posted 495 yards of total offense. And that was with Hoosier quarterback Kurtis Rourke, who was limited with an apparent hand injury, taking a seat at halftime after completing 81% of his passes for 189 yards through the first two quarters.

The Hoosier running backs ran with power and made every step look easy en route to their 215 yards rushing.

And Indiana made it look easy from the jump.

On IU’s first drive, running back Justice Ellison broke free for a 43-yard gain — the longest rush allowed by the Blackshirts all season.

That was just the first of 15 explosive plays that boosted the Hoosier offense on Saturday. Nine of them occurred in the first half alone.

Here’s the full rundown of them. Be warned, it’s lengthy.

That 43-yard rush by Justice Ellison.

A 10-yard rush by Ty Son Lawton.

A 12-yard rush by Ellison.

A 14-yard rush by Lawton.

A 29-yard rush by Lawtwon.

A 31-yard touchdown rush by Ellison.

A 10-yard rush by Ellison.

A 10-yard touchdown rush by Kaelon Black.

A 12-yard rush by Tayven Jackson.

A 28-yard connection between Rourke and Elijah Sarratt.

A 36-yard connection between Rourke and Omar Cooper Jr.

A 22-yard connection between Rourke and Sarratt.

A 16-yard connection between Tayven Jackson to Miles Cross.

A 35-yard connection between Jackson and Lawton.

A 15-yard touchdown connection between Jackson and Sarratt.

In total, Nebraska’s defense surrendered 495 total yards of offense — 152 of them came off explosive pass plays and 171 of them came off explosive run plays.

This goes into the explosive plays, but… yeah. Not great. Yards after contact is not a readily available stat that’s tracked for college games, but that number had to have been sky-high.

Coming into Saturday, Nebraska had the No. 7 run defense in the nation — only allowing an average of 84.2 yards rushing per game.

Indiana had 48 yards rushing on its first drive. Its first DRIVE.

By halftime, Indiana had 154 yards on the ground. By the game’s end? They’d ran for 215, averaging 6.5 yards per carry.

Not a championship effort.

Special teams continues to be a liability for Nebraska. And that was evident from the first opportunity.

Jacory Barney Jr. fielded Indiana’s first kickoff at the 1-yard line, barely in bounds. But the momentum of the catch had him step out of bounds — resulting in Nebraska’s first drive of the game beginning at the 1-yard line.

If Barney had caught the ball with one foot out of bounds, that would have been a penalty on Indiana for an out-of-bounds kick and Nebraska would have started the drive at the 35-yard line.

That ensuing drive ultimately went nowhere and had Brian Buschini punting from the end zone. On the next kickoff return opportunity, Nebraska put in Rahmir Johnson instead of Barney.

Late in the second quarter, on Brian Buschini’s third punt of the afternoon, the snap was wildly off the mark — resulting in a short, 25-yard punt.

Five turnovers. Three interceptions and two fumbles. Uncharacteristic.

Nebraska needed to score on its drive near the end of the first quarter. And the Huskers were marching like they were going to.

On fourth-and-1 from the Indiana 12-yard line, Nebraska rushed and running back Dante Dowdell fumbled the ball. And Indiana capitalized on the miscue.

Nebraska hadn’t lost a turnover since Dowdell’s red zone fumble against UTEP in the season opener.

After Dowdell’s fumble, Emmett Johnson took over on the next drive as NU’s lead back.

Through the air, quarterback Dylan Raiola had a tough afternoon at the office in that regard, too.

Raiola had three interceptions, and both were poor decisions.

The first one came on Nebraska’s first drive of the second half. The Huskers were moving. On the 15th play of that drive, while on the Indiana 13-yard line, Raiola seemingly stared down Thomas Fidone from the snap and Indiana’s Thomas Asbury jumped the route at the 3-yard line — snagging the ball out of midair and sprinted back 78 yards to the Nebraska 19-yard line before Rahmir Johnson pushed him out of bounds. Indiana’s offense scored three plays later to go up 35-7.

The second one came on NU’s next drive. It was third-and-4 and Raiola was trying to force it. Indiana’s Jamier Johnson snagged it. Indiana’s offense scored four plays later to go up 42-7.

The third came in in the fourth quarter on the first play of the drive after Raiola fumbled.

Nebraska lost a second fumble on fourth-and-6 in the fourth quarter when Indiana’s Mikail Kamara came up with a strip sack on Raiola.

The pushing and shoving and jawing and crap-talking in the fourth quarter that resulted in officials needing to separate people just wasn’t necessary.

The game was long decided by the time the fourth quarter began, but you still cannot have a sequence as mindboggling as this one.

No. 1: A false start on Bryce Benhart, bringing up fourth-and-7 now as opposed to fourth-and-2

No. 2: A Nebraska timeout because the play clock was running down

No. 3: An incomplete pass

No. 4: Matt Rhule getting flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. (Reasons unclear before interviews.)

Nebraska’s perimeter blocking had issues once again.

An illegal block in the back against Jahmal Banks negated a 6-yard rush for Emmett Johnson that would have put Nebraska in a second-and-4 situation. Instead? First-and-19.

And then eight plays later on the same drive, a missed block on the perimeter in the second quarter allowed Haarberg to get tackled for a loss of 1 yard. Had that block been made? Wide open for what would have been Nebraska’s first touchdown of the day. (Barney did score on the next play, so not all was lost, but the point remains.)

It was good to see cornerback Tommi Hill back on the field after a lengthy time away this season as he dealt with his plantar fascia issue.

Indiana was very aggressive in its play calling, opting to go for it on fourth down twice in the first quarter. The first one paid off with a 5-yard touchdown. But the second? The Hoosiers had fourth-and-2 from the Nebraska 26-yard line.

With Nebraska blitzing all drive long, the Blackshirts blitzed again. But no Hoosier picked up linebacker Mikai Gbayor and he sprinted untouched into the pocket for the big sack on Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke for a loss of 9 yards and a turnover on downs. Unfortunately for Nebraska, though, the Husker offense couldn’t capitalize on the favorable field position.

Nebraska has needed to use Heinrich Haarberg more, and the do-it-all offensive weapon came in for Nebraska in the red zone early in the game.

On second-and-9, Nebraska used Haarberg out of the shotgun and had him run. He gained 8 yards, giving Nebraska a third-and-1 opportunity at the Indiana 12-yard line.

He finished the game with five carries for 32 yards to ne Nebraska’s leading rusher. Those numbers include when he came in late in the game for clean-up duty.

Glad to see him involved. Nebraska still should use him more, though.

Nebraska needed to get Fidone involved more, and they did. Fidone had six catches for 91 yards.

Nothing. The weather, I suppose, and the pre-game blueberry donut from Parlor Doughnuts. That was a delight — the highlight of the day.