An Embarassing Collapse

Brandon Jackson has a dominating 1st quarter leading Nebraska to a nice 16-0 lead early in the 2nd quarter. But what followed has to be the most disappointing Nebraska collapse I can remember, getting outscored 41-7 down the stretch before finally scoring a meaningless touchdown at the end.

Or should I say "embarassing".

The thing is, there really isn't any single thing that Husker fans can point to. Nebraska was dominated in all aspects of the game in the final 35 minutes: offensively, defensively, special teams.

Perhaps one turning point was when Callahan subbed Marlon Lucky in for Jackson. Jackson probably could have used a breather, but by that same token, it seemed to be the turning point in momentum that Nebraska was never able to recover from.

Defensively, this might have been one of Nebraska's poorest performance in terms of fundamentals since the 2001 Colorado game. Between horrible, horrible tackling, soft coverage on receivers, and being exposed in overpursuit, it was a horrible performance by the Blackshirts.

Maurice Purify shows his talent as a big-time receiver, but someone needs to get this kid's emotions under control as he was called for his third personal foul of the season. It's only a matter of time before Purify gets flagged in a critical situation.

Special teams were abysmal today as well. 2 missed extra points as well as being unable to get kickoffs to the endzone. Franz Hardy making some extremely poor decisions to run kickoffs out of the endzone put Nebraska's offense into holes.

Brandon Jackson's 180 yards rushing looks like an anomoly. When was the last time Nebraska had a rusher perform like that, yet get blown out like this?

Thanks to Oklahoma's defeat of Missouri, Nebraska still has a shot to win the Big XII North. But right now, that should be the least of Nebraska's concerns as Nebraska needs to regroup. Missouri and Texas A&M are better than any team that Nebraska has beaten this season, which is a very troubling notion.