Tad Stryker: Statesboro Blues

The temper of the group because it filed out of Memorial Stadium and made its means dwelling late Saturday evening was surprisingly acquainted, and utterly misplaced.

As somebody who’s lined a whole lot of highschool video games in outstate Nebraska, I acknowledge the lighthearted-conversational really feel of oldsters who know to not take their soccer workforce too severely this yr. Have you ever walked away from an eight-man recreation with mother and father who dutifully adopted, and even loved, the efforts of their children, however know of their hearts that their workforce isn’t a menace to win many video games? By no means on the earth did I believe I’d expertise that from hundreds of followers on the campus of the College of Nebraska.

For somebody who lined Cornhusker soccer when it mattered, who was there throughout Tom Osborne’s Age of Stability within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s, and his Golden Period of the ’90s, it was an eerie feeling to see followers making mild dialog, a few of them laughing, as they left the scene of a 45-42 gut-punch loss to Georgia Southern. For crying out loud, Georgia Southern! However then once more, there’s actually no cause to take the Husker soccer program severely proper now, It’s 1-2 with a loss to Northwestern (which went on to lose to hapless Duke), and to a Solar Belt Convention workforce. The straightforward a part of the schedule is gone now.

For the primary time ever, a Nebraska workforce that scored at the least 35 factors in Memorial Stadium misplaced the sport. The protection gave up an unimaginable 642 yards, 34 first downs and 6 touchdowns to a workforce with just about no vital historical past whose brand-new teaching employees is barely two video games into making a radical transition from an option-based offense to a fast-paced passing assault. Offered with these unpalatable info, it’s onerous to conceive of a state of affairs the place the Huskers win even two extra video games, not to mention the 5 that it could take to make them bowl eligible.

The Husker soccer program is so irrelevant now that ESPN’s web site didn’t even point out on its School Soccer homepage the Huskers’ loss to one of many lowliest BCS applications within the nation. Possibly as a result of some editor at ESPN didn’t contemplate it a shock? In that case, it’s onerous to argue with that logic.

Certainly, the Huskers below Scott Frost have reached Invoice Jennings-era irrelevance, when there’s actually extra cause for faculty soccer writers across the nation to speak about Kansas College than there may be about Nebraska. Actually, even within the unlikely occasion that Frost and his workforce pull a stunner in opposition to Oklahoma subsequent Saturday, why wouldn’t it quantity to far more within the scheme of issues than Jennings’ Halloween 1959 upset of Bud Wilkinson and the Sooners, a head-scratching end result that meant comparatively little within the backwash of a 4-6 season? It’s a disgrace, as a result of the brand new offensive coaches and particular groups coordinator that Frost belatedly employed are beginning to make a distinction. This yr, it’s the defensive facet of the ball, which has all of the teaching stability you may ask for today, that’s frittering away any quickly dwindling causes for athletic director Trev Alberts to significantly contemplate retaining Frost, who in his fifth season in Lincoln has but to string three wins collectively.

Frost’s tenure will likely be remembered because the the Uncomplementary Period, the time when the Huskers had sufficient expertise to win properly over half their video games, however as a substitute captured solely a couple of third of them, as a result of if the offense performed properly sufficient, the protection did simply sufficient to lose, or vice versa, and if each the offense and protection held issues collectively, the kicking recreation discovered a strategy to blow it. Final yr, defensive coordinator Erik Chinander and his tremendous seniors stored Nebraska in each recreation. This yr, Chinander’s unit appears prone to play the Huskers out of them.

The principle story of this loss to the little workforce from Statesboro, Georgia, was the utter incapacity to get a cross rush in opposition to a journeyman quarterback who, one yr after failing to engineer a single landing drive with the Buffalo Bulls, returned to the identical stadium and regarded like Tom Brady throwing to NFL-caliber receivers who Travis Fisher’s defensive backs merely couldn’t sustain with. Whether or not names like Derwin Burgess Jr., Jeremy Singleton and Khaleb Hood will discover their strategy to the Nationwide Soccer League is questionable, however there’s no query these wideouts regarded extra athletic than the Huskers’ again seven when it mattered.

The Blackshirts couldn’t decelerate Georgia Southern with tender, “bend-but-don’t-break” protection. They couldn’t decelerate Southern with blitzing, hard-pressing man-to-man protection. Even two interceptions by Marques Buford Jr. and two favorable video opinions that by some means stored NU’s spectacular fourth-quarter 98-yard landing drive alive weren’t sufficient to get a win for the Huge Purple, who merely couldn’t make stops on protection after they wanted them. Actually, the whole recreation had an eight-man-football, “defense-is-an-afterthought” vibe to it.

I do know there are offended followers on the market. They have been those hammering the Husker radio call-in reveals and unloading their frustration. However there was none of that angst from these of us strolling away from the stadium within the coolness of the night. It was an evening for quiet resignation, which might be one of the simplest ways to scale back the ache of seeing yet one more winnable recreation go into the loss column.

We’re solely on the quarter pole. The season remains to be younger, nevertheless it’s a daunting omen when a big part of probably the most loyal fan base in America begins to emotionally try of one thing that after meant a lot.