5 things learned from Nebraska football’s ‘devastating’ loss to Oregon

Nebraska football is a different team than it was last season. But it’s too similar. The Huskers are good, but they have to start finishing games.

They also have to be better on offense. There were a lot of things that needed to be better on Saturday night. For the second week in a row, the Huskers collapsed in the fourth quarter.

There’s no other way to say it. Indiana and Oregon have outscored the Huskers 25-7 in the fourth quarter over the last two weeks. In the first three quarters of both games combined, Nebraska outscored two preseason top-five teams 24-12.

That’s proof that the team is better. It just doesn’t mean much if you don’t win the game. Nebraska football should have won the last two, but it didn’t. Here’s what we learned.

Everyone had a hand in it

Whether it was the defense allowing three fourth-down conversions on a 20-play touchdown drive, the special teams giving away points and yards, the offense going three-and-out four times in the second half, including immediately after Oregon cut the lead to five, or the coaching staff not knowing how to defend Dylan Raiola or wasting timeouts, those were all reasons Nebraska lost.

Everyone had a part. Collectively, the Huskers have to learn how to win. I’m not sure exactly how you do that. At some point, you just start doing all the little things right. Nebraska football did that for a good chunk of the games, but not in all three phases.

No one on the team is beyond blame. The Huskers still went toe-to-toe with a really talented team. There are things to feel good about while acknowledging that they have to learn how to beat one of these teams.

It’s almost a statistical improbability for Nebraska football to keep losing this way.

The defense is good enough to be 7-0

Nebraska football allowed Oregon to run 37 plays in the fourth quarter. The Ducks converted all three of their fourth-down attempts (3 of 3). Those two drives yielded 11 points. The Huskers should have pressured Dylan Raiola more. They let him dink and dunk his way down the field, with just 59 yards on 18 pass attempts. That’s less than four yards per attempt.

The offense and running game got Oregon into scoring position. Raiola made some good throws, but Nebraska let him stand in the pocket too long.

Still, the Huskers held Indiana to 20 points and Oregon to 17. Those two teams went a combined 4 of 26 on third downs. In both instances, the score should never have been close enough for the opponent to steal the game.

That blame falls squarely on the offense. Against Oregon, the defense forced two takeaways, taking points off the board after Anthony Colandrea gave Oregon the ball in the red zone. It also gave the Huskers the ball in Oregon territory on the only drive outside of the final one that yielded even a single first down in the second half.

Nebraska had numerous chances to extend the lead to double digits but went three-and-out basically every time.

Rhule’s wasted timeouts were costly

Matt Rhule panicked when Oregon was driving for the win, calling three timeouts on defense in the final 8:08. Had it worked and the Huskers stopped Oregon on fourth down, he would have deserved credit.

It was a high-leverage situation, but call your best play and trust your players. If Rhule had kept all three timeouts, Nebraska would have gotten the ball back, and as poor as the offense was all night, Colandrea is dynamic in the two-minute offense.

Nebraska has scored in the final minute of the first half in all four Big Ten games. Well, it would have if the Huskers hadn’t missed a short field goal against Indiana. With 28 seconds and no timeouts, Colandrea got the Huskers to midfield.

Imagine if he had one timeout and another minute. Maybe it doesn’t work out, but at least you give yourself a chance. The first timeout, I understood, but the last two were ill-advised.

The offense has to improve

There might have been some fool’s gold in the first few games, but Oregon isn’t missing anyone on defense. That might be the best defense in the Big Ten. Indiana isn’t far behind. The Hoosiers held Ohio State to 19 points in a loss.

Against the Hoosiers, the Huskers had 40 drives inside the 40 that turned into three points. There were chances. There’s no way Nebraska should have scored fewer than 20 points in that game.

Saturday, the offense was flat-out awful for most of the night. Colandrea deserves credit for engineering a touchdown drive after facing a third-and-22 at the Oregon 32 with 1:07 left. He turned that into a touchdown.

I would have liked to see some tempo. Play more in the no-huddle. It felt like too many runs were wasted on the running backs when Colandrea should have had a read or a keep. Many of his runs were scrambles.

Losing games on special teams

Matt Rhule should have learned this lesson already. He lost a game to Illinois in 2024 because of a missed kick. Special teams were a disaster against Iowa last season, so even Mike Ekeler isn’t perfect.

Ekeler’s special teams units made a lot more positive plays than negative ones, though. Archie Wilson had some decent punts, but the return game is actually worse than if the players just fair-caught it every time. That’s true of both kickoff and punt returns. Jacory Barney fumbled a punt. He was lucky to get it back.

A bad snap led to the missed field goal last week. A bad snap led to a field goal for Oregon when Wilson’s knee touched the ground as he fielded the ball.

If those things don’t happen, Nebraska might be 2-0. It’s just a shame to have a team this good and also be so bad on special teams. A change might be needed in the offseason. The mistake wasn’t moving on from Ekeler; it was promoting from within instead of finding a proven coach.

The Huskers are paying for that mistake now.

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