Sometimes, things are just so bad you are better off just flushing it, burning it, forgetting it and move on. This, ladies and gentlemen, is of those times. I know Penn State had a 4-6 record. I’m well aware they were #2 in the preseason poll, bringing back playoff caliber talent. I know we looked as bad as we did against Minnesota. I’m just as angry at the coaching staff about all of that too.
You learn a lot more about yourself in the mistakes you make then you learn during the good times. However,
Saturday was one of those where you might be better off just not looking at what went wrong. If the question is “what went wrong”, the answer is “yes”. Plain and simple. Just move on.
The worst thing about a game like this is that you end up straining your eyeballs trying to find something positive that came out of all of it. There weren’t many, let’s just put it that way. The best thing I can come up with is that the Huskers weren’t shut out. You just silently chuckle amongst yourselves in a self-deprecating way about how it all went. You got beat, just tip your cap and move on.
If you don’t, then Friday snowballs into disaster in a damn heartbeat. Iowa doesn’t care about your problems. It’s not a stage 5 clinger that needs to know every little detail about your games. Iowa football is like Prince Valium from “Spaceballs”, they just “don’t do it for you”. They will literally bore you to death until you make a mistake and they beat you because you got antsy.
Husker fans, players and coaches have to spend the remaining time this week gnashing their teeth on Thanksgiving food and not what happened in Happy Valley. We’ll be far more tired about that than if we’re all just turkey tired. You will need to save up your energy before Iowa tries to put you right back to sleep. It’s best to flush it down to be rested.
Beating the Hawkeyes at home is a rare occurrence, but one that can be taken advantage of. The Hawkeyes do the same thing every year, run the ball, punt, play defense, force turnovers, kick field goals, and win. It might not be necessarily in that order, but fairly close. They play in an ugly way even frogs don’t turn into princes when you give them a kiss.
Penn State showed Nebraska the blueprint 0n how to go from a mediocre team to the next level in the Big Ten. Iowa can be that team as well. Nebraska can’t allow themselves to be overly flashy, just do the right things and winning should come along too. As Coach Rhule said, “good teams don’t lose twice in a row”. No better time to prove that then this week.
If the Huskers win, I consider 8-4 with the youngest team in the conference a pretty good season, even with the “easy” schedule. I thought Nebraska would finish 8-4 this year, losing to one of Michigan or USC, Minnesota, Penn State and Iowa. It’s still accomplishable, but it all comes down to putting last week and its feelings away for good.
Yogi Berra said “90% of the game is half-mental.” I know he’s referring to baseball there, but is there really any sport where you can be good if you aren’t mentally strong? Mental toughness is about getting back up after getting your butt handed to you and kicking the next guy’s. The loss to Penn State no longer matters if you beat Iowa. That is how the mentally strong flush down a bad performance. Beat Iowa, make Thanksgiving better. Go Big Red!
