Recovery and determination for Nebraska football in Columbus

What legacy will this leave behind — another one-point loss for the Nebraska football program, another loss to a ranked team —?

Have we seen this movie before? And will it turn to ashes, as it did in the seemingly promising 36-31 loss to Ohio State near the end of Scott Frost’s first season?

Or will the hard-fought 21-17 loss at the Horseshoe be a significant step in a long-awaited revival of Nebraska football?

Seven days after the Cornhuskers fell 56-7 in Bloomington, Indiana, at the end of a long, troubling week in which an ever-increasing chorus of loud voices across Husker Nation proclaimed that Rhule was on the verge of losing his team , they did a 180-degree turn on the defense and resumed their previously stingy ways. The Huskers had three sacks and seven tackles for loss in the first half. They got a threesome. They forced five Ohio State University punts and intercepted one pass. The first seven were disruptive. But they led 17-14 midway through the fourth quarter and had a chance to beat a top-five team for the first time in 23 years, but they failed to take the next step other than look like they belonged in addition.

In the five-point loss at Columbus in 2018, freshman Adrian Martinez came up big, completing 22 of 33 passes for 266 yards and a touchdown, with no interceptions. He had Nebraska ahead twice, including a 21-16 lead at halftime. But the Huskers lost to the eighth-scoring Buckeyes on a day in which they were plus-two on turnovers. After the game, Urban Meyer praised Frost and explained how difficult his offensive plan was to manage. At the time, Meyer seemed to be on the right track; The Huskers have won four of their last six this year.

Frost appeared to have the Husker program on the rise at the end of 2018, but he couldn’t keep the momentum going. What about Rhule?

The Huskers gave Ohio State all they could handle without getting much from Dylan Raiola, who showed some climbing ability but never hurt the Buckeyes with his arm. Raiola managed just one touchdown on four trips to the red zone. He couldn’t match Martinez’s 2018 performances, completing 21 of 32 passes with no touchdowns and no interceptions while gaining just 152 yards through the air, or 4.75 yards per attempt. In the two-minute practice, he threw an interception, badly missing his receiver on a seam route to end Nebraska’s potential game-winning drive.

Raiola got some help from his running game (Dante Dowdell ran for 60 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries), but the perimeter blocking on screens and sideline passes was once again subpar.

Perhaps the best news of the day came from the right foot of placekicker John Hohl, who made all three of his field goal attempts from 39, 54 and 47 yards. Snapping and holding appeared to be improved. It was a long overdue breath of fresh air and three refreshing sips of cold water for the drought-stricken kicking game. Hohl, a redshirt freshman from Lincoln Southeast and Iowa Western Community College, had never made a field goal longer than 21 yards for the Huskers.

The Blackshirts held NU steady and kept Ohio State’s five-star athletes off balance and ineffective for most of the afternoon.

“We never really controlled the game,” OSU coach Ryan Day admitted to a FOX Sports reporter after the game.

Opposite in a postgame press conference that sounded more like a sermon, Rhule increased his optimism, saying he sensed a championship mentality in his players for the first time and talked about how he, his staff and his team are fighting to overcome one decades-old negativity in the locker room. He spoke of efforts to continually overcome the loser mentality prevalent in his program.

On the Husker Sports Network, color commentator Damon Benning openly praised Rhule for his outspokenness and his efforts to build culture and inspire his players, saying he was glad his son was playing for him. It’s obvious that Benning likes what Rhule preaches. Four games in November will show whether Rhule’s players buy it. Rhule himself admitted that the moral victory in Columbus wouldn’t have been worth it if it weren’t for four well-played quarters against UCLA.

Compare that to Saturday’s 21-17 loss to the fourth-ranked Buckeyes, who got two long touchdown passes from Will Howard on two failed coverages in the first half and not much else until their final game-winning drive.

A selective look at the stats gives Nebraska fans reason for hope. The Huskers had 18 first downs to Ohio State’s 11. The running game was erratic as always, but they still outrebounded the Buckeyes 121-64. The total offense was remarkably similar: 285 yards for OSU, 273 for NU, which had a 10-minute possession advantage over the Buckeyes but could only reach the end zone once.

After a promising start to the season, the Huskers (5-3 overall, 2-3 Big Ten) have an offense that is in the midst of a physical crisis. Blocking by the offensive line and wide receivers was unreliable. It took a step forward in Columbus, but has a lot more to prove in November as it begins next week against UCLA, a game the Big Red must win before Rhule’s talk of turning losing mentalities into winning mentalities into championship mentalities becomes serious can be taken.

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