The 2021 Nebraska Football Season – Was A Death By “Paper Cuts”

If you wanted to explain to someone how the 2021 Nebraska football season went, all you would have to do is have them watch the Iowa game.

It’s a fair statement to say that Nebraska is the best three win team of all-time. Though that is one of those statements that you don’t really want attributed to your football program.

In yesterday’s loss, it took a punt block returned for a touchdown and a safety for Nebraska to figure out a way to lose.

Before that all happened, it looked like Nebraska’s back-up quarterback, Logan Smothers, was going to be a headache for Iowa’s defense. Scott Frost’s playcalling in the first half was great as Nebraska went into halftime with a 14-6 lead. It finished the fourth quarter up 21-9.

The worst part of that 21-9 lead was that Nebraska’s defense dropped three interceptions. The next play after each dropped interception resulted in a field goal. I said it at the time that this is how Nebraska is going to find a way to lose. Add that with the above noted mistakes is also how you lose a game that Nebraska absolutely should have won.

Again it is a perfect example of Scott Frost’s 2021 season.

It has to be said that it does mean something that these kids kept on showing up every single week. Most teams would have given up on the season halfway through. These seniors (and some juniors) would have quit but they didn’t.

That is a credit to Frost and this staff. It’s a credit to those players.

It still isn’t good enough and Scott Frost knows that. He now has a long off-season to make the right hires to get things fixed.

It goes back to special teams and an inability to close out games on offense.

As Frost said after the game, the Iowa loss was a death by “paper cuts.” Isn’t that the truth. The same could be said for the entire 2021 season.

Two Mornings After

Nebraska hits wall in Black Friday showdown as Iowa erases 15-point deficit to win, 28-21 | Football | journalstar.com
The Huskers had Iowa on the ropes, but the Hawkeyes roar back from a 15-point deficit to win their seventh straight in the head-to-head series.

Nebraska-Iowa: Three things we learned, three things we still don’t know | Football | omaha.com
Three things we learned and three things we still don’t know about the Huskers coming out of Saturday’s loss to Iowa.

Tom’s Takes: The most impressive — if that’s the right word — stat of Nebraska’s season | Football | omaha.com
Nebraska did something this season that no team has ever done in college football history. Tom Shatel would call it impressive, but that might not be the right word.

Sooner Magic and Hawkeye Logic and, Again, Husker Tragic – Nebraska Football – Hail Varsity
“A lot had to go wrong in a row,” said Scott Frost of Nebraska’s 28-21 loss to Iowa. And so it did, on Black Friday and for all of one of the most improbable seasons possible.

‘There’s nothing like this feeling. It’s the worst,’ after Huskers set unwanted record
You come to the Nebraska football program to make history, just not this kind of history.

No college football team has ever lost nine games in a year by single digits, and yet that is the medal – surely made of a rusted out, jagged Fresca can or something – that the Huskers will take from this 2021 season, that ended Friday with Iowa beating Nebraska 28-21 and Cam Taylor-Britt summarizing what many in the fan base fully understand.