BOULDER, Colo. — The east side of the bleachers at Folsom Field, where the Colorado students sat Saturday, emptied onto the grass after Nebraska scored on the final play to trim the Buffaloes’ margin to 36-14, an illuminating outcome for these rival programs that faced differing versions of a reset this year under new coaching staffs.
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The party for CU fans began midway through the third quarter when the Buffs answered Nebraska’s only touchdown of the first 59 minutes with a 75-yard drive to reach 20 points — a threshold seemingly unachievable for Nebraska.
The atmosphere never got too ugly, as anticipated. And that makes it hurt even more for the Huskers.
Colorado fans were too busy living in the moment and celebrating coach Deion Sanders to notice Nebraska. After the realization hit Saturday morning that the Huskers would not stage another red takeover in Boulder and the Buffs jumped ahead with a surge late in the first half, CU fans stopped caring about Nebraska.
This is a program, Colorado, that built its identity on caring about Nebraska.
Which raises a fundamental question: This moment for Nebraska, what is it?
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My sense is that Nebraska fans are struggling for an answer, maybe more than ever. Confusion, anger, frustration, all of it is rising.
Is it time to question what you thought you knew about Matt Rhule? He’s coached two games. His home opener is next Saturday. Trev Alberts brought him to Lincoln and agreed to pay Rhule $74 million over eight years because Alberts believes in what Rhule can do for the Huskers — today, yes, but primarily when he’s had years to build.
Is this moment a sign that it’s hopeless? Perhaps Nebraska just can’t play ball in the big leagues. If the Huskers don’t stack up with the rebuilt Buffs, who won one game a year ago and added 57 transfers, how can Rhule’s team compete in the expanding Big Ten?
Is it time to throw in the towel on this team?
No to all of it.
Read more: Matt Rhule: Nebraska meant no disrespect with pregame huddle on Colorado logo
The Huskers and their fans have navigated almost every mountain and valley on the football landscape. In the past decade, they’ve spent a full five seasons obsessing over the job status of three head coaches. From it, the football constituency is emotionally scarred.
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And Nebraska as a program is damaged. Understand and accept that. Recognize that it can be fixed. Give it time to heal. See what happens. The alternative is what — to jump ship? Nebraska fans don’t do that.
As it turns out, Rhule didn’t work miracles in the offseason. A fancy coat of paint and a new locker room have not enabled Nebraska to turn a corner in nine months.
What’s happened here, really, is more of the same. Nebraska made a coaching change because it couldn’t get out of its own way. And at the start of a new era, it’s turned the ball over four times in each of its first two games.
“That’s killing us right now,” wide receiver Billy Kemp IV said.
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Quarterback Jeff Sims, dealing with a high ankle sprain after he took a fourth-quarter hit Saturday that knocked him out for the final nine minutes, has accounted for six of those turnovers. Nebraska is minus-6 in turnover margin.
“I know everybody’s going to be, as they should, upset and panicked, and those things,” Rhule said. “We’re better than we’re showing. But it’s just words. And we have to put that into action.”
It’s healthy to draw conclusions from the first two games. Sims has not shown himself to be the right fit. Because the Huskers lack game-changing talent in every phase of the game, they must play complementary football to win.
Complementary football means the quarterback can’t lose two fumbled snaps — the first Saturday at the CU 31-yard line on third down when the Huskers had entered four-down territory, intent to score on their opening possession, and the second at the Nebraska 24, leading to the Buffs’ first points.
It’s OK to ask aloud if the Huskers are dealing with performance anxiety. They’ve saved their most mind-numbing turnovers and other mistakes for the worst-timed moments.
“I think we have a team that wants to win so badly,” Rhule said, “sometimes they’re doing things that we’re not really wanting them to do. It’s out of care. These guys really care.”
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It’s OK to wonder if Casey Thompson, who transferred from Nebraska five months ago, would have made a better QB for this system. He probably could have helped the Huskers win one of their first two games this year. And maybe both.
When Rhule built his staff in December and signed Sims out of the transfer portal, Nebraska didn’t have a healthy returning starter. It didn’t have a healthy Thompson in the spring to compete with Sims.
And the fact is, Thompson chose to leave. Perhaps Rhule should have seen that Thompson could make the Huskers better than Sims and shifted course in April.
It’s easy to second guess. But it’s probably better to turn the page.
Nebraska football as an entity — all of it — needs to turn the page. It needs a catharsis, a cleansing that 2023 can’t provide if some of the divisiveness and impatience outside of the program festers this season like it’s 2017 all over again.
Rhule told the Huskers after they lost Saturday that they’ll correct problems on the field if they stick together away from it. If there’s something to gain from the past two weeks, he said, Nebraska players have seen how Rhule and his assistant coaches react to a bad day.
“They get to see that I’m going to be the same guy,” he said.
According to guard Nouri Nouili, the Huskers remain determined to grow from their experiences, good and bad.
“We want the guys who want to be with us,” he said, “with us.”
“The guys that don’t want to play, that are quitting on themselves,” Nouili said, they can exit.
Hold on. Does he see a splintering among this team? It’s sticking together, Nouili said. “One hundred percent.”
“At the end of the day, whoever is still in that locker room,” he said, “are the people we’re going to ride with.”
Said safety DeShon Singleton: “We’re going to be OK.”
When Rhule took over at Nebraska one day after last season ended, he embraced the roster he inherited. Rhule kept much of the locker room intact. But he inherited everything else, too, about the program, including those rusty surfaces that a fresh coat of paint can’t hide.
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Rhule’s approach to this rebuild is like a tortoise, Fox analyst Joel Klatt said Saturday during the broadcast, in comparison to Sanders’ hare.
In the week ahead, even more national attention is coming for the Buffs. They bid to open 3-0 when Colorado State visits Boulder next Saturday.
The Huskers will host Northern Illinois. Elusive win No. 1 likely won’t come without stress.
And forget, for now, about comparing Nebraska’s progress to any other program.
This moment for the Huskers is not about the quarterback’s struggles or the coaching decisions or the turnovers that change games. Those things are symptoms of a basic difficulty in operating with functional efficiency.
And the moment certainly is not about what’s going on with the upstart Buffs.
It’s about accepting that Nebraska is a damaged football program. Has all of Nebraska, including its passionate fans, ever taken a deep look within? Because when Colorado turns its back on an opportunity to wave victory in the face of Nebraska, it’s time.
(Top photo of Colorado cornerback Omarion Cooper tackling Nebraska quarterback Jeff Sims: Ron Chenoy / USA Today)
