Nebraska's Loss to Minnesota Continued the Program's Pattern of Losing in October

On this week's After Nebraska Football, Josh Peterson and Jack Mitchell unpacked Nebraska's disappointing 24-6 loss. Did the loss continue a pattern too often seen around here? And what does it mean for the team as Northwestern approaches Saturday?

Below is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

Josh: Moving into this back half, there was this possibility that they continued to have success, but there was a thing hanging over them and it took away from the joy of it. And now, Jack, you're worried that there will even be any joy at all. And then [Matt Rhule] won't get hired [by Penn State] and everyone will just be pissed going into another season where they have to make some sort of change to try to fix the problems.

Jack: And honestly, man, if you could put this week into our Groin Kick formula, it would score very, very high. Starting from the moment that Dane Key scores that touchdown and the exuberance. And the players coming out on the field at Maryland and I'm as high as I've been in the Husker fan in years about the team, about the potential, all of that.

And then the next morning Penn State happens. And then it's just like, you got to have that high for a few hours once again. And then absolutely bottoms out. It almost follows the script of one of those games, to be honest. It’s, “wow, you should be here. Here we go! It's finally time to party!” Right? Remember the “parties missed factor?” It was gonna be Friday night; Nebraska bowl eligible. No distractions. You go in, you finally beat this Minnesota team.

And instead, you had a whole week where you didn't even focus on that, at least as a fan. And they just have their worst performance you could have ever imagined. And here we go, looking at Northwestern being possibly the thing that erases any idea of the whole Matt Rhule year three thing, if Northwestern wins that.

What do we say? We said 4-0 and all of a sudden, you've guaranteed improvement. 3-1, there's still a chance but you you've got to you've got to pull something off. 2-2, same old thing.

Minnesota's win over Nebraska has taken away the good vibes of the 2025 season. | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

Josh: Yeah. And we talked about it a lot over the last few weeks. The idea of a 4-0 October. Well, of course, that's off the board. We wondered aloud, “Hey, 3-1, would that be enough?” It would get them to 6-2, which would be progress, which is nice. You would look at the schedule and say, “All right, you know, you can maybe squint at 8-4. You could squint at 9-3, but it's going to be really hard.” I thought if they went 3-1 that 7-5 was very much going to be the record.

Now, I mean, you lost in the way in which you did, Jack, 7-5 almost seems like a victory if they were able to get there. It really does. [A subscriber] says, “a loss to Northwestern and 6-6 is staring us in the face.” 5-7 might be staring them in the face!

Jack: You're running back the first two years. It isn't even just the Rhule era. It is remarkable, Josh, how often something happens in the middle of a season, whether we know what it is or not, and just changes the entire tenor of this program, from what happened in the first half of the season. And then all of a sudden, everything feels like a battle. Everything feels dark. I mean, all the way back to Pelini.

Sometimes there are actual incidents; whatever. And then all of a sudden, it's hanging over the program, whether it's something as simple as not being able to get the sixth win. Whether it's the Penn State thing, whether it's Mike Riley in 2016. Why do October and November feel so dark around here every damn year? It's a different mojo. It looks like a different team every year in the second half than the first half.

Josh: Isn’t it often just like such a house of cards? Go back to the question about the distraction, and you just worry about the fragility and that things go a little bit wrong and everybody melts down. And [the loss to Minnesota] was on [the] offense in particular, and it took until the fourth quarter for defense, but just a complete and total meltdown

[A subscriber says], “Imagine the season if we didn't bring in Ekeler. I feel like special teams has already won its two games we would have otherwise lost: Cincinnati, Michigan State. We'd be 3-4 right now and the season would feel way different, as bad as it feels right now.”

It has saved them a couple of times. It saved their bacon a couple of times so far this year. And the [crappy] part about [the loss to Minnesota] is there was no bacon to save. The one time that special teams made the play, a punt down to the two, that was the worst defensive drive of the season. Complimentary football and they couldn't do it that one time.

Because you get to stop there, Jack, suddenly you get the ball at the 50. And I know you haven't had any success in their side of the field, but maybe then you finally are able to build. Like that could have been a nice momentum swing. And it was; it was just a nice momentum swing the other way.

Jack: They look like a different team at the end of the year sometimes and have for many of these years. And a lot of times it's because of an event. It's just because of the mood around the program. It's all jovial and fun and back-slappy in the first half of the season, when you're talking to the coach. And then there's a cloud over it in the second half because of something, tangible or intangible.

And yeah, part of it is harder games, no doubt about it, but it's also just a feeling as well. And here we are, right? UCLA game last year. Come on, don't tell me Nebraska wasn't built to beat that UCLA team last year. There was a cloud.

Josh: [A subscriber says], “It's funny that we make jokes about post-September Maryland when we have been eerily similar to that vibe last year. This team has a handful of plays away from 3-4. You get some brownie points for finally winning one-score games, but this 5-2 feels incredibly fraudulent.”

Absolutely right. You know, we do the “October Maryland” stuff and that's mainly because they're always like 4-0; Nebraska hasn't done that very much. God, when's the last time they went 4-0 in [September]? 2016, right? So, they don't do that, but they completely fall apart in October and certainly in November.

Jack: And I feel like we have adequately documented Nebraska's failure in big games.

Josh: Check out the Groin Kick Chronicles!

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