Nebraska
Nebraska embarrassed at Indiana. Question everything in Year 2 under Matt Rhule
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Question everything.
Everything that you know and think you know about Nebraska football after its shocking 56-7 loss Saturday at Indiana. Question it all.
Question the opponent. Was that really Indiana, the Hoosiers, or was that Ohio State?
No, actually, it didn’t look like Ohio State, the next foe for Nebraska. Saturday at Indiana’s Memorial Stadium looked like the kind of sheer domination you’d expect if Matt Rhule’s team played the Indianapolis Colts.
Absurd as that sounds, this was somehow more bizarre. Nebraska committed five turnovers, including three among its 0-for-5 showing on fourth down. The Huskers just handed the ball to No. 16 Indiana and its high-powered offense seven times.
Final: Indiana 56, Nebraska 7.
That’s a stain on the Nebraska season that will remain no matter what happens the rest of this season.
— Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) October 19, 2024
That is giving away the game. That is the opposite of complementary football. That is losing football. That is an embarrassment on a level for Nebraska reminiscent of 20 years ago this month, when Bill Callahan, in his first of four seasons with the Huskers, took a one-loss team to Texas Tech and lost 70-10.
If you remember that game, with a true freshman quarterback fed to the wolves in the second half, well, I’m sorry. It was hard to forget. For years, it remained a stain on Nebraska. Fans of lesser teams in the Big 12 regurgitated the score as a way to mock the Huskers, who had posterized programs for years with similarly lopsided outcomes.
The images from Saturday won’t fade soon — of Indiana running backs Justice Ellison and Ty Son Lawton bursting through the second level of the Nebraska defense; of Kurtis Rourke slinging passes in front of poorly positioned defensive backs; of freshman Dylan Raiola forcing throws into blanket coverage and frustratedly addressing quarterbacks coach Glenn Thomas on the sideline after an Indiana defensive back raced 78 yards with an interception to open the second half.
GO DEEPER
Time to take Indiana seriously? Hoosiers make case as Nebraska’s misery vs. ranked teams continues
“We’ll take this one,” Rhule said. “We’ll let it hurt. We won’t say much, I hope. We’ll go back home. We’ll wake up tomorrow, and we’ll get to work on next week. Because no matter what the score was, we lost. Whether you lose in overtime or you lose by the score we lost by today, it’s just a loss. It’s a bad loss.”
Oh, but it’s not just a loss. Not 56-7 at Indiana, which last won a Big Ten game by such a margin in 1945 and hasn’t won more than eight games in a season in more than 50 years.
It’s more than a loss. It’s something that lingers and zaps momentum, which was slow to build for Nebraska this season after its brilliant first half in a 28-10 win against Colorado six weeks ago.
Something has felt off about the Huskers since Week 2 despite their 5-1 mark to enter Saturday. With the exception of a strong second half at lowly Purdue, they rarely appeared in sync.
Yet Rhule said after the debacle in Bloomington that he didn’t see the signs.
“I usually can see things coming,” he said. “I’ll tell you right now, I did not see this coming.”
So does Rhule have his finger on the pulse of this team?
Question everything.
“As I told the guys in there, this happened on my watch,” the coach said.
Rhule continued to take the blame for the defeat in his postgame interview. He apologized multiple times to fans who made the trip to Indiana and to those who’ve invested their time and money in Nebraska football.
Money matters more than ever, by the way, in this name, image and likeness world. Don’t think it was far from the minds of athletic director Troy Dannen and his lieutenant in charge of football, Haven Fields, as they watched the final seconds Saturday on a beautifully sunny afternoon from the far edge of the Nebraska sideline.
“It was bad football,” Rhule said. “I’m not embarrassed by our players, but I’m embarrassed by the job that I did to get our team ready. I have to do a better job next week and in the weeks after.”
Question it. Nebraska stands little chance at Ohio State, which took this weekend off to rest after its first loss of the season, by 1 point at Oregon. The Huskers are set to enter November at 5-3, just like last season, when they lost their final four and missed a bowl game for the seventh consecutive season.
This season, Nebraska trades out Maryland and Michigan State for UCLA and USC, keeping Wisconsin and Iowa to finish. The Bruins earned their second victory of the season Saturday — on the road against Rutgers — and will have a week off before heading to Nebraska.
There is no assured sixth victory out there.
Nineteen games in at Nebraska, Rhule seemed a bit shaken Saturday.
“We’ve been together now for about a year and a half,” he said, “and that was the first time it was like this.”
Defensively, Nebraska couldn’t get off the field, allowing 6.5 yards per Indiana rush and 9.3 per pass attempt. The Hoosiers beat Nebraska in every quarter and in every phase. They came in better prepared after both teams enjoyed a week off. IU scored on its first drive, then kicked off to the corner, perhaps trying to goad Nebraska’s error-prone special teams into a mistake.
Jacory Barney caught the ball at the 1-yard line and ran out of bounds.
Starting at the 1, Nebraska got 2 yards on a power run by Dante Dowdell, then it put the ball in the air on eight consecutive plays over two possessions.
“We wanted to get into big (offensive sets),” Rhule said. “We wanted to run the ball. We wanted to play action. We wanted to be violent.”
Go ahead, question that, considering the strategy of offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield at the start.
“I don’t know that we’re going to win,” Rhule said. “just dropping back and throwing it every play. We need a run game to go with it.”
Five running backs carried 20 times for 49 yards with a lost fumble by Dowdell after what would have been a successful fourth-down conversion in the red zone when the Hoosiers led 7-0.
“It stings,” Raiola said. “But we’ve just got to learn from it and move on.”
Said wide receiver Jaylen Lloyd: “It’s tough. There’s nothing we can do right now.”
None of the seniors on the roster was made available to the media after the defeat.
Junior defensive end Jimari Butler said the Huskers’ confidence suffered when Indiana made a big play.
“Sometimes,” Butler said, “plays don’t go our way and we kind of get down on ourselves.”
Why? The defense is full of seasoned vets. Few of them, of course, have much experience with winning at the collegiate level.
On that, listen to what Indiana coach Curt Cignetti told the Hoosiers before kickoff.
“They’re going to start getting rattled and start getting frustrated,” IU linebacker Jailin Walker said, repeating Cignetti’s message. “So we knew once we got them in that element, then it was time to put the football really on the gas.”
And that is exactly what the Hoosiers did. From late in the first quarter to early in the fourth, they scored touchdowns on six consecutive possessions — not including a 25-second drive at the end of the first half.
For Nebraska, it was a dark day. Where do the Huskers go from here, with a giant in college football, a team much more talented than Indiana, looming?
“I just think that our guys are going to bounce back,” Rhule said. “I’ve never doubted the character of those guys.”
The Huskers practiced well before the trip to Bloomington, he said, and they didn’t quit when events began to spiral Saturday.
“They’re resilient,” Rhule said. “And they want to battle.”
Until Nebraska proves it when backed into a corner in need of a big answer, question that, too.
Question it all.
(Photo of Dylan Raiola: Rich Janzaruk / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
A Kearney, Nebraska, man who loves the giant Big Boy 4014 suffered a small fracture to his spine when he fell off a ladder trying to climb into the cab of the locomotive during its historic whistle-stop tour on Thursday.
Trevor Allen Bentley told Cowboy State Daily that he was about to fulfill a longtime dream of riding inside the cab of the world’s largest operating locomotive.
He was climbing on the outside of the Cheyenne-based locomotive and had one more step to go on the five-rung ladder to get into the cab when he fell backward about 8 feet, landing hard on the ground.
A 16-second video posted (see below) shows the heavyset man, wearing a bright yellow construction vest, jeans and tennis shoes, gripping the handles on either side of the ladder and struggling to get up to the last step.
After a few seconds, he slips and falls to the ground, landing on his back between the train tracks.
Three others nearby, also in bright-colored vests, were at Bentley’s side immediately. Instinct seemed to kick in as they attempt to help him sit up.
Bentley said he was able to sit up and that he wanted to get up right away.
“I felt fine,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Friday. “Obviously, I was sore. But I just wanted to get up.”
He said he was more embarrassed than anything, “because the Big Boy attracts a show.”
He guessed a few hundred people had turned out to see the Big Boy at the station.
It also was raining, a factor Bentley said likely contributed to his slip.
Ride Of A Lifetime Dashed
Bentley, who works for the online news site CentralNebraskaToday.com, had planned to ride Big Boy 4014 on its approximate 40-mile leg between Kearney and Grand Island, Nebraska, documenting the trip on video for the outlet.
He said he had emailed Union Pacific to request the ride, which the railroad granted.
In a social media post he shared after the fall, he wrote, “A boyhood dream got dashed as I fell 8 feet off of Big Boy 4014 before I got the ride of a lifetime.”
He later told Cowboy State Daily he has been a train enthusiast all his life. He had been in the Big Boy cab before, he said, “which is why I thought I could do it.”
“I just couldn’t get that last step in,” he added.
30-Minute Delay
Big Boy was already running behind schedule when it pulled into the Kearney station, said Bentley. His fall caused an added 30-minute delay.
North Platte resident James Burns said he frequently visits the tracks and had decided to follow Big Boy from North Platte to Kearney.
He was at the stop, taking pictures of Big Boy 4014 when Bentley fell, though he told Cowboy State Daily he did not see the fall. He also confirmed the incident caused an approximate 30-minute travel delay.
The fall sparked a lot of speculation on social media, with comments ranging from prayers that Bentley was OK to sharper criticisms of Bentley’s attempt to climb aboard. One such criticism was his wearing tennis shoes rather than work boots.
Bentley was taken via ambulance to CHI Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney and said he was released later that day.
‘No Fault of UP’
He was home resting when he spoke with Cowboy State Daily via phone Friday.
“I’m just stiff more than anything,” he said, adding that he hopes to be back to work next week. “I am just extremely lucky.”
Bentley wanted to make it clear that his fall was no fault of Union Pacific or anyone but himself. He said what happened was a total accident and that’s why he signed a waiver with UP about riding in the locomotive.
“I do not fault them in any way, shape, or form,” he said. “I don’t want to put a blemish on their tour. It was no fault of Union Pacific. It was on my own accord.”
Union Pacific publicly responded to the incident in a 16-word statement: “We are glad the person is OK and appreciate the concern we’ve heard from rail fans.”
Contact Kate Meadows at kate@cowboystatedaily.com
Kate Meadows can be reached at kate@cowboystatedaily.com.
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – First Alert 6 has the headlines you need to know to get your Friday started.
One hurt in Friday morning crash on I-80 in Omaha
One person was taken to the hospital after a crash Friday morning on Interstate 80 in Omaha.
The crash happened shortly before 6 a.m. on I-80 westbound near 72nd Street. Cameras show the car is completely flipped upside down.
Traffic is being impacted Friday morning, as the far left lane remains blocked.
Police dispatch says initial reports show the victim’s injuries are considered serious.
Nebraska softball defeats Arkansas in extra innings at WCWS
Ava Kuszak hit a two-run home run in the 10th inning as Nebraska defeated Arkansas 5-3 Thursday night at the Women’s College World Series. The victory marks the Huskers’ first WCWS win since 2002.
Jordy Frahm pitched all 10 innings for Nebraska, striking out nine batters. Hannah Coor also homered for the Huskers. Nebraska advances to face Alabama on Saturday at 6 p.m.
The fourth-seeded Huskers are making their eighth WCWS appearance and first since 2013. Six players on the roster are Omaha natives who developed through Nebraska Gold Softball.
Papillion native Frahm earned NFCA Player of the Year honors this season. Gretna’s Alexis Jensen also earned All-American recognition.
The WCWS runs through June 5. The full tournament bracket can be found here.
Nebraska baseball to open NCAA regional Friday
The first Lincoln baseball regional in nearly two decades will begin on Friday.
Nebraska hosts South Dakota State, Ole Miss and Arizona State in the double-elimination pod, hoping to advance to the program’s first super regional since 2005.
The Huskers open the weekend with the Jackrabbits on Friday at 3 p.m. The game will be streamed on ESPN+. The Rebels and Sun Devils play at 8 p.m.
Nebraska defeated South Dakota State 5-4 in a close midweek game on March 4. The Jackrabbits (24-31) made an unlikely run to a Summit League championship as the No. 4 seed to earn their place in this weekend’s regional.
STB pauses Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger proceedings
The Surface Transportation Board has accepted Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern’s updated merger application but is seeking more information before a full review.
The agency ordered an Environmental Impact Statement under federal environmental law and requested details on nine issues, including passenger rail, market-share projections and service assurance plans. Responses are due by July 27.
The EIS process will include at least 12 in-person public meetings and several virtual sessions.
In a release Thursday, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern called the move “an important step forward” as the deal continues to advance.
Shareholders have backed the merger, and Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen has endorsed it.
NU Board of Regents to hold emergency meeting Friday
The University of Nebraska Board of Regents is set to hold an emergency meeting Friday.
A notice sent to First Alert 6 does not state why the meeting was called.
According to the notice, the only business on the agenda is a motion to go into a closed session.
First Alert 6 is told the session is private to protect people who have not requested a public meeting to discuss confidential real estate acquisitions.
Farnam Street to close Friday morning for streetcar work
Farnam Street in Omaha is scheduled to be temporarily closed Friday morning for work in the streetcar project.
The closure is set between Turner Boulevard and 33rd Street for streetcar track concrete placement. Work is expected to begin at 6 a.m. and go until 10 a.m.
City officials say the street will reopen once the last truck has finished.
The full streetcar system is still on track to open by fall 2028.
—
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Will Bolt and Nebraska baseball are not interested in overlooking South Dakota State on Friday afternoon.
Even after earning the program’s first regional host bid since 2008, the Huskers made it clear Thursday that advancing is top of mind. Home-field advantage inside Haymarket Park should help, but taking advantage of the opportunity in front of them remains the goal.
With the Big Red preparing to begin what it hopes becomes a deep postseason run, Bolt and several players addressed the media following Thursday’s open practice. Here’s everything they had to say.
Electing to Throw Carson Jasa in Regional Opener
Nebraska’s ace is getting the nod, despite the fan base raising somewhat of a concern over the decision. For Bolt and his team, it comes based on respecting their opponent on Friday afternoon.
“He’s been our most consistent pitcher all year long,” Bolt said. “We feel like he gives us the best chance to set the tone for the weekend. No matter who you’re playing this time of year, it’s three wins to win the tournament. And we feel like he gives us a really good chance tomorrow to set a great tone for the entire weekend”.
Bolt continued by saying the decision was made far before the Huskers found out they’d host. About a month before postseason play began, Nebraska switched up its pitching rotation. Now, even after exceeding expectations, they’ll stick with the plan.
“We feel like sending Jasa out there is our only option,” Bolt said. “At the end of the day, respect your opponent. South Dakota State’s coming in here to beat us. So, our best bet to win the game tomorrow, in our opinion, is to throw Carson Jasa”.
Timmerman’s Confidence in Huskers Pitching Decision
NU’s players fully understand the decision made by the coaching staff, especially knowing the kind of challenge South Dakota State is expected to present. The two programs met back in early March, when the Huskers narrowly escaped with a victory. Entering Friday, Nebraska expects a similar battle.
“No matter who’s on the mound, everyone in the dugout, everyone in the bullpen has the utmost confidence in each and every person,” Tucker Timmerman said. “But, Carson, especially, we all love going out and watching him throw. His stuff’s electric. He gets everybody going in the dugout. He’s everyone’s No. 1 fan. So it’s great to have a guy on the mound like that to start us off on a weekend”.
The decision to start Jasa has the full backing of the locker room. With Omaha serving as the ultimate goal, nobody inside Nebraska’s program is under the impression that getting there will come easily. That much is clear.
National Attention Set on Lincoln
Senior infielder Rhett Stokes enters his third postseason run with Nebraska, understanding just how different this year feels. After spending the last tw,o NCAA Tournament appearances traveling on the road, the Huskers now have the opportunity to play on their home field. Something they’ve been very successful at defending this spring.
“This year’s a lot different than the last two years,” Stokes said. “We’re obviously hosting this year, which is a big advantage to us and gives us the best chance to move on to the next round”.
As the top seed in the Lincoln Regional, the Huskers enter Friday with clear advantages on paper. Even so, NU understands how difficult advancing through the postseason is sure to be. While respecting the challenge South Dakota State presents, NU knows it’ll be expected to win.
The Huskers’ Resiliency Could Be a Factor
Nebraska has built its season on resilience. Time and time again, the Huskers have found ways to battle back, keeping themselves alive in games that at times appeared out of reach. That mentality could become a critical characteristic of the team as postseason play begins this weekend.
“We’re a team that’s never out of the fight,” Timmerman said. “That’s a huge thing when you’re in postseason play. Even though we could be down a couple runs, up a couple runs, we’re still going to be playing as hard as we can for as long as the game is going on”.
The Lincoln Regional is the only regional in the country featuring three ranked teams, underscoring just how difficult the path ahead could be for the Big Red. With Nebraska posting a 23-1 record at home this season, continuing that level of play inside Haymarket Park will likely determine whether they make it to the supers.
Why Nebraska Can’t Afford to Overlook SDSU
Despite the Huskers having already beaten SDSU earlier in the year, the Big Red can’t afford to go into the matchup overconfident. They know that early March is much different than late May, and they’ll need their play on the field to reflect that.
“It’s postseason baseball,” Stokes said. “Anything can happen; that’s the nature of it. You can’t treat any one opponent differently. They’ve made it here for a reason. They’re a good team, and they’re hot. I mean, they won the Summit League, so there’s no difference in how we prepare for tomorrow”.
NU will prepare as if the Jackrabbits are a great team. Because, to this point in their season, they’ve proved to be. They won’t sleepwalk their way to a victory, and they know it. That mentality will need to be carried with them through every one of their remaining games.
Expected Attendance at Haymarket Park
Postseason ticket demand has become a serious topic of discussion in recent weeks, but Nebraska’s focus remains centered on the games themselves. Even so, the Huskers fully expect Haymarket Park to provide one of the best atmospheres the venue has ever seen this upcoming weekend.
“I haven’t thought a ton about the number,” Bolt said. “I know that tickets sold out pretty quickly. There’s going to be standing room only everywhere you look. It’s going to be a great environment. I’m not sure how many they’re going to let in the doors; I guess as many as the fire marshal allows, is what I’ve been told. [We’re] excited to play in front of our fans, and to treat them to postseason baseball here in Lincoln”.
Excitement around the program has reached its highest since the move to the Big Ten. Now, the challenge becomes matching that energy on the field and rewarding the fans in attendance who cheer them on.
Nebraska’s game against South Dakota State is set for 3:00 PM CDT on ESPN+. The second game between Arizona State and Ole Miss will follow at 8 p.m. CDT on ESPN2.
The full schedule is below. All times are central.
Friday, May 29
- Game 1: #1 Nebraska (home) vs. #4 South Dakota State (away) 3 p.m.
- Game 2: #2 Ole Miss (home) vs. #3 Arizona State (away) 8 p.m.
Saturday, May 30
- Game 3: Game 1 Loser vs. Game 2 Loser 2 p.m.
- Game 4: Game 1 Winner vs. Game 2 Winner 7 p.m.
Sunday, May 31
- Game 5: Game 3 Winner vs. Game 4 Loser 2 p.m.
- Game 6: Game 4 Winner vs. Game 5 Winner 7 p.m.
Monday, June 1
- Game 7: Game 6 Winner vs. Game 6 Loser (if necessary) TBA
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