Nebraska Shows It Can Win Without Its ‘A’ Game

The good feelings were gone and, maybe, so were Nebraska’s chances of making the College Football Playoff.

Nine-win season? Ten-win season? Gone, probably. And deservedly so.

Nebraska didn’t bring its “A” game to Maryland on Saturday. You have to recite the alphabet some to find the proper letter to attach to how the Huskers played.

It was a game the Huskers easily could have lost and in recent past years, they did.

But this 2025 team didn’t lose to Maryland — despite doing more than enough to fly home with an “L.” No, the Huskers won, 34-31, rallying with two scores in the fourth quarter to shock the Terps.

You can look at this game as survival, or that maybe Nebraska (5-1) was lucky to win. When a team loses the turnover battle by 3-0, and those turnovers turn into 17 points, it’s a recipe for a defeat and a painful one at that.

Or, you can say Nebraska showed moxie and resolve because without that kind of effort and spirit, this game might have been lost. And it helped that Emmett Johnson ran for 176 yards

Football teams that win despite themselves are to admired to a certain degree. Nebraska, in near-defeat, showed the characteristics of a winning team.

In the harsh light of the Sunday morning film breakdown, the Huskers’ shortcomings and mistakes will be evident. Coaches will see the errors and the players will hear about them. For real, there were shortcomings and mistakes in bunches.

This postgame examination can wait. For now, Nebraska can take a deep breath and enjoy the ride.

Interceptions galore

It was bad enough that Huskers quarterback Dylan Raiola threw two interceptions, which turned into 10 Maryland points. He came into the game with only two interceptions in five games. Throwing picks last season was one of the criticisms of Raiola’s inconsistent 2024 season when he threw a Big Ten-leading 11 picks.

The interceptions turned around the game. Nebraska twice had double-digit leads but the picks gave Maryland life.

After the first Raiola interception, Maryland had a short field (33 yards) and scored a touchdown to take a 14-10 lead. After the second interception, a Maryland field goal cut the Huskers’ lead to 24-17.

Then it got really bad for the Nebraska. Raiola threw a perfect pick-six — to Maryland’s Dontay Joyner — and the Huskers trailed, 31-24, with 6:40 to play in the third quarter.

But Raiola bounced back and so did the Huskers. He led Nebraska on two fourth-quarter scoring drives. The winning drive went 81 yards on seven plays, the winning points coming on a 3-yard touchdown pass to Dane Key with 1:08 to play.

And Nebraska survived its first true road game of the season.

Huskers pass defense shredded

Maryland, which lost its second consecutive heartbreaker in the fourth quarter, picked apart Nebraska’s vaunted pass defense, top-ranked in the country.

Terps freshman quarterback Malik Washington mostly had his way with the Huskers’ defense, twice rallying Maryland from 10-point deficits.

Washington looked poised in the pocket. He threw into tight windows and his numbers showed that — he completed 27-of-37 passes for 249 yards and one touchdown. Coming into the game, Nebraska had allowed an average of 91.8 passing yards per game.

Before Saturday, the most passing yards the Huskers had allowed in a game was 105 to Michigan’s Bryce Underwood.

Maryland wanted to run against Nebraska’s 88th-ranked rushing defense (115.6 yards per game average) and it did, gaining 130 net yards on 30 carries. Maryland was 7-of-15 on third-down conversions, 46.6 percent. Nebraska allowed only 21.9 percent of third-down conversions coming into the game.

For the second consecutive season, Nebraska is 5-1. Last year, Nebraska then lost four consecutive games, three of them by one score. The Huskers were 2-5 in one-score games last season.

This year’s team don’t seem to have that close-game flaw in its DNA. Nebraska is 2-1 in one-score games. That’s something else winning teams do, too — win the close ones.

It’s odd, when you think about it, that Nebraska showed what kind of winning team it is, and could be, on what arguably was its most flawed performance of the season.

More From Nebraska On SI

Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, subscribing to HuskerMax on YouTube, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.