The UCLA Bruins (3-5) won their second-straight Big Ten game on Saturday afternoon on the road against the Nebraska Cornhuskers (5-4). There were a few strengths and weaknesses that can be evaluated from the upset win.

Strength: Quarterback Play

The Bruins could not have better quarterback play from what they have received over the past few games from senior quarterback Ethan Garbers. In his fourth year as a Bruin, Garbers threw for 219 yards and two touchdowns against the Huskers in the win.

His play has only gotten better as the season has progressed. In his first five games this season, Garbers tossed nine interceptions and just four touchdowns. Since then in his last two contests, he has thrown zero interceptions and six touchdown passes. A 180-degree turn for him in recent games.

Weakness: Penalties

The flags would not stop flying through all four quarters for the Bruins on both sides of the ball. Nine penalties for a total of 62 yards is a big reason why the Huskers were able to climb back from a 27-7 deficit.

Four unsportsmanlike conduct penalties were a massive issue as well, bailing the Huskers out on multiple drives that ultimately led to scores. The post-whistle penalties must be eliminated and the discipline must sharpen if the Bruins want to pick up a few more wins down the stretch.

Strength: Defensive Stops/Turnovers

A major reason the Bruins grabbed a road conference win on Saturday was because of how well the defense played in crucial moments. A fourth-down red zone stop in the fourth quarter to keep it a two-score game was generated by a sack from junior linebacker Carson Schwesinger to turn the ball over.

In the final seconds of the game, senior defensive back Kaylin Moore caught the game-sealing interception as the Huskers were trying to put together a game-tying drive. It was the first interception of Moore’s career.

You cannot say enough about how the defense bowed up in situations where they had faltered in the past. Especially in a ruckus atmosphere like Lincoln, Nebraska, the Bruins stood their ground and made the plays when required.

Weakness: Running Game

Besides a team-high 56 yards rushing from Garbers, the run game was not very successful for the Bruins. They were going against one of the better run defenses in the conference, but just 85 yards on the ground kept the Bruins to the pass game for most of the game.

Even with the Huskers limiting the run game for the Bruins, the passing game thrived, so it did not fully affect the offense being unable to be two-dimensional. The Bruins are ranked dead last in the Big Ten in rush yards per game (73.9), the only team in the conference that is averaging less than 100 yards.

The Bruins must find a way to establish a strong rush attack in the coming weeks to pull out a few victories toward the end of the year. Finding ways to let running backs T.J. Harden and Jalen Berger succeed in this offense will prove important.

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BELLEVUE, Nebraska — Even as outside polling shows a competitive race for U.S. Senate in ruby-red Nebraska, Republican U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer remains adamant that her challenge from nonpartisan industrial mechanic Dan Osborn is a media-driven fabrication.

Fischer said reporters “wanted to see a race,” so they created one. Nebraskans, she said, know her record of getting results on national defense issues, funding roads, bridges and broadband and fighting profligate spending.

“He may put up these maps that he loves to show and ads and things that he’s been all over the state, and I supposedly have been nowhere,” she said of Osborn. “He’s being … disingenuous. I am always out in the state … listening to Nebraskans.”

Fischer’s frustrated tone belies her annoyance at needing help from local and national Republican groups to fend off the Omaha union leader. Osborn has had help from some national Democrats, Libertarians and local Legal Marijuana NOW Party members in his upstart campaign.

Fischer brings reinforcements

On the last weekend before Election Day on Tuesday, Fischer brought in reinforcements including Arkansas’ Sen. Tom Cotton, her seat neighbor on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Army veteran contended during a Saturday visit that Fischer had seen a tough race coming all along.

Some Republicans have questioned whether Fischer’s campaign grew complacent, despite the GOP’s 2-to-1 advantage over Democrats and a significant bloc of nonpartisan voters.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which typically focuses spending in swing states, has taken the unusual step of investing millions to help Fischer in right-leaning Nebraska. 

On Sunday, Fischer rejoined a statewide barnstorming tour with Nebraska’s all-GOP congressional delegation aimed at shoring up Republican support for Fischer and 2nd District GOP U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, who typically faces close races in the Omaha area.

At a stop Sunday in Omaha, U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb, a longtime friend of Fischer’s, described Osborn as a “fraud that’s being perpetrated on Nebraskans” and said the state’s voters needed to put him out of a job Tuesday.

He was referencing Osborn’s decision to pay himself from campaign funds during the race.

Osborn, at rallies of his own Sunday in Omaha and Lincoln, pledged to serve only two terms in the Senate if elected, calling term limits “an anti-corruption measure.” He reminded voters that Fischer had pledged the same and was running for a third term anyway.

Fischer told the Examiner that she learned the importance of seniority in the Senate after serving and that the state has benefited from her experience.

Fischer said there was nothing she would have done differently about her race. She largely ignored Osborn for months, sitting on a campaign war chest while he built unexpected momentum and raised funds. Fischer’s allies said she missed a chance to define her challenger early in ads.

“I’d like to know who they are,” Fischer said of her campaign’s Republican critics. 

Cotton defended her Saturday, saying, “Deb was working hard, taking no votes for granted, cautioning people about the playbook that (Senate Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer was running.”

Osborn’s rise

Osborn, an Omaha union leader who has drawn blue-collar crowds from Scottsbluff to Omaha, surprised many with his sharp TV ads and willingness to anger leaders in the Nebraska Democratic Party to reinforce his relative independence.

He courted the endorsement of Nebraska Democrats for months before saying immediately after the primary that he didn’t want any party’s backing. Some of his supporters also joined third parties and worked to prevent them from nominating other candidates for the ballot. 

Some of his supporters indicated this was an organized strategy. If third parties ran candidates on the general election ballot, that could split the vote more, instead of having a contest between Fischer and Osborn alone. 

Osborn has built his brand with support from organized labor and progressive donors who suggest that a nonpartisan label could make popular progressive policies more viable in red states.

Fischer has called Osborn’s campaign “a political science experiment,” a jab that Osborn has embraced. He has told supporters at many of his town hall stops that many of the best ideas in American governance started that way. 

“I’m just a worker for workers,” Osborn said. “There’s a lot of messaging out there, but at the end of the day, that’s why I’m here.”

Mistakes by Osborn supporters

Fischer has capitalized on late mistakes by some outside groups and people considering helping Osborn now that they’ve helped him make it a contest, including a super PAC that typically backs Democrats and Schumer.  

Fischer’s campaign pointed to a text from the left-leaning super PAC saying he would align with Democrats in the Senate if he is elected. Osborn has said he won’t caucus with either party if elected, a stance he reiterated in a recent sit-down with the Nebraska Examiner. 

He has said this will give him leverage enough in a divided Senate to get the committee assignments Nebraska needs. Fischer has called that naive and said he would not be treated well by either party. She also contends he would caucus with the left. 

“Her opponent, though, is a little bit different kind of guy than I’ve seen,” Cotton said of Osborn. “I’d say it’s a curious kind of independent who is using the Democrats’ fundraising machine to raise millions of dollars from out of state.”

Money flows in

Osborn has benefited from roughly $20 million in outside spending on his behalf, either supporting his bid or bashing Fischer, campaign finance forms show. GOP-aligned outside groups have come in with about $9 million for Fischer.

The two campaigns have each raised nearly $8 million, as well, record hauls for Fischer and for a first-time challenger not named Pete Ricketts, Nebraska’s junior senator who put millions of his own money into his first Senate race in the mid-2000s.

Osborn’s campaign in October reported raising $3.3 million, a record quarter for any modern Nebraska Senate race. Fischer raised nearly $1 million in the same period. Osborn’s campaign said he had raised another $3.1 million since the start of the fourth quarter. 

Much of that came as a slew of national and internal polls from both campaigns started showing a closer-than-expected race, and a handful showed Osborn with a slight lead. They showed Osborn receiving significant support from some Republicans. 

Fischer campaign responds

Fischer’s team cut an ad recently with former President Donald Trump. Her campaign started airing and sharing the ad digitally in conservative circles to help consolidate her support from the GOP base, which moved numbers her way.

Most local political observers still expect Fischer to win, perhaps by a wider margin than national polling shows. But some leave open the possibility of a close finish or even an upset, and that has motivated Democrats and nonpartisan voters who want to break the GOP hold on the state’s delegation.

Fischer is running ads on Osborn’s statements backing a legal path to citizenship for immigrant workers if they have lived in the U.S. for decades. The ads say he supports giving Social Security benefits to people who are in the country illegally, pointing to a recent interview he gave.

Osborn says the ads are twisting his words. He said he is talking about Nebraskans’ friends and neighbors who pay into Social Security through their paychecks and get no benefit. They’ve helped shore up the system for other workers and should have a legal path to citizenship, he said.

“It’s the fact that our immigration system is broken,” Osborn said. “People that have been living here, working here, that are not criminals, they’ve raised families in communities. It’s fixing the immigration system so they can get legal status.”

Osborn talks issues

Osborn, a Navy veteran, said Fischer ran for the Senate saying she was going to fix the immigration system and then was part of the group that tanked a bipartisan immigration bill because Trump urged them to do so. 

Dan Osborn, nonpartisan

“We’ve got to start somewhere,” Osborn said. “If it fell short, it fell short. But at least the American people will know that Congress is doing something. This is one of the most ineffective Congresses in history.”

He says he would support policies that make it easier for people to join unions and to advocate for better pay and benefits. He says he won’t take special interest dollars and won’t let donors influence his decisions.

He touts his union support from the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers, which held a major rally for him in Lincoln that turned heads when Republican State Sen. Mike McDonnell, another Omaha labor leader, joined him on stage and applauded his bid.

Fischer pushes back on rancher attack ad

Fischer has some union support as well, particularly from public safety unions representing state and local police officers and troopers and firefighters and paramedics. She also amplifies her backing from farm and ranching groups.

U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.

Fischer took issue with Osborn’s push to call her a “fake rancher.” Her family owns a ranch near Valentine, Nebraska, where she was a school board member.

Her campaign rallied last week in Herman, Nebraska, with the Nebraska Farm Bureau, the Nebraska Cattlemen and a number of her farm and ranch supporters who argued that she has listened to their needs and is a voice they want on the farm bill.

Both candidates sat down this spring with the Examiner’s political podcast, Picking Corn, and talked about a number of issues, including the need to support allies like Israel and Ukraine with American weapons. 

Both said they want to protect American service members. Fischer talked again this weekend about how she worked with Bacon to secure funding for a new runway at Offutt Air Force Base, as well as flood repairs and flood-fighting levees.

Both Fischer and Osborn said they want the next farm bill to include improved versions of crop insurance. 

Osborn has talked about the need to raise the cap on income subject to the Social Security tax, so millionaires and billionaires would pay more into the program. Fischer has said she would cut the federal tax on Social Security benefits.

Douglas County Commissioner Jim Cavanaugh, a Democrat, said Osborn was the right candidate “to preserve and improve Social Security” and criticized Fischer for previously discussing the potential of raising the Social Security retirement age for younger workers.

Fischer has said that retirees rely on the program and that it needs to be protected.

Bacon and Fischer’s other defenders repeated a hook from her stump speech, that Fischer is a work horse and not a show horse.

Osborn has said her campaign is kicking a dead horse and needs to be put out to pasture. 

Nebraska football’s game against UCLA was the worst of the Matt Rhule era.

Two weeks ago, the Indiana loss was bad, but the Hoosiers are a good football team that could play for a Big Ten title. While UCLA is a decent team with three wins, they’re unlikely to make a bowl game. Nebraska’s performance against Ohio State suggested they could win all their remaining games. The UCLA game has me questioning whether the Huskers will even make it to a bowl.

This game has shaken my previously unwavering faith in Rhule’s direction for the program. The current staff is running out of time to prove it can lead Nebraska football back to prominence, and tough decisions will almost certainly be needed in December.

The late-down performance told the story of this game. A traditional box score shows that the Huskers “won” this aspect of the game, converting 9-of-17 third downs versus UCLA’s 6-of-13. The Bruins had a massive advantage in terms of EPA: 6.77 vs. the Huskers’ -8.01. The Blackshirts were able to put Bruins quarterback Ethan Garbers in challenging third-down situations, requiring him to gain an average of 6.4 yards. The Bruins made easy work of that distance, averaging 9.8 yards per play on third down. In contrast, the Huskers managed just 3.1 yards per play on third down.

UCLA’s costly mental mistakes masked a subpar performance by the Huskers’ offense. Nebraska only scored points on drives when UCLA was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Those three penalties alone accounted for 9.48 EPA in Nebraska’s favor. This game was an infamous one-score loss thanks to UCLA’s careless mistakes.

I will give some credit to the playcalling in this game. Nebraska didn’t call many pass plays that targeted a player near the line of scrimmage. Raiola’s 40-yard pass to Jacory Barney was the Huskers’ biggest play outside of the UCLA penalty that extended that drive a few plays earlier. I loved the quick-hitting runs with Dowdell lined up as a fullback. Lining up Heinrich Haarberg at running back is also a unique wrinkle that could set up a big play in a future game.

However, rolling Raiola out to his left on a crucial fourth-and-goal at the five-yard line baffled me. The rollout put Raiola in an awkward position to throw. Carter Nelson’s route likely would have left him short of the end zone, even if the pass had been completed. Neither Isaiah Neyor nor Jahmal Banks were on the field for that play. I’d like to see one of them given the opportunity to make a play or draw a penalty rather than relying on two true freshmen to execute a challenging play to perfection.

Nebraska also lacked urgency during the fourth quarter. The play clock would frequently run for 30 seconds before Nebraska snapped the ball. I had this concern at the end of the first half against Illinois, but the Huskers still managed to score, giving them a halftime lead against the Illini. NU offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield could help Raiola make reads at the line of scrimmage if the offense was set before the headset turns off with 15 seconds left on the play clock.

This game was a missed opportunity for Nebraska. Against Ohio State, special teams and the defense took a giant leap forward compared to the Indiana game. Both units took a step back this week, which is rightfully concerning to fans wanting to see a definite improvement in year two under Rhule.

The Huskers have three games to change the narrative of this season, but their early-season concerns are becoming this team’s tragic flaws later in the year.

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