Recovery and determination for Nebraska football in Columbus

What legacy will this leave (another one-score loss for the Nebraska football program, another loss for a ranked team)?

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

Or will the close 21-17 loss at the Horseshoe be a substantial step in Nebraska football’s long-awaited resurgence?

Seven days after the Cornhuskers were stunned 56-7 in Bloomington, Indiana, at the end of a long, bewildering week in which a growing chorus of loud voices in Husker Nation proclaimed that Rhule was about to lose his team , they made a 180-degree turn on defense and resumed their previously stingy ways. The Huskers had three sacks, all in the first half, and made seven tackles for loss. They got three and outs. They forced five Ohio State punts and intercepted one pass. The top seven were disruptive. But leading 17-14 midway through the fourth quarter, with a chance to beat a Top 5 team for the first time in 23 years, they couldn’t take the next step beyond looking like they belonged.

In the five-point loss at Columbus in 2018, freshman Adrian Martinez held his own, completing 22 of 33 passes for 266 yards and a touchdown, with no interceptions. He had Nebraska lead twice, including a 21-16 halftime lead. But the Huskers lost to the eighth-ranked Buckeyes on a day when they got a plus-two in turnovers. After the game, Urban Meyer praised Frost and explained how difficult his offensive scheme was to run. At the time, Meyer seemed to be right; the Huskers won four of their last six that year.

Frost seemed to have the Husker program on an upward path at the end of 2018, but was unable to maintain the momentum. 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 produced just one touchdown in four trips to the red zone. He failed to match Martinez’s 2018 efforts, completing 21 of 32 passes with no touchdowns and one interception, gaining just 152 yards through the air, or 4.75 yards per attempt. In the two-minute drill, he threw an interception, badly missing his receiver on a seam route, to end Nebraska’s potential game-winning drive.

Raiola received some help from his running game (Dante Dowdell rushed for 60 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries), but the perimeter blocking on screens and lateral passes was again poor.

Perhaps the best news of the day came from the right foot of kicker John Hohl, who made all three of his field goal attempts from 39, 54 and 47 yards. Snaps and grabs seemed to improve. It was a long-awaited breath of fresh air and three refreshing drinks of cold water for the drought-plagued kicking game. Hohl, a redshirt freshman for Lincoln Southeast out of Iowa Western Community College, had never kicked a field goal longer than 21 yards for the Huskers.

Through it all, the Blackshirts defended NU, keeping Ohio State’s five-star athletes off balance and ineffective for much of the afternoon.

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

Across the way, in a postgame news conference that sounded more like a sermon, Rhule added to the optimism, saying he saw a championship mentality in his players for the first time, and talked about the way he, his staff and his team are struggling to overcome a decade-long negative vibe in the locker room. He spoke of efforts to continually fight the losing mentality that permeates his program.

On Husker Sports Network, color commentator Damon Benning openly praised Rhule for his outspokenness and efforts to build a culture and inspire his players, and said he’s glad his son plays for him. It’s obvious that Benning likes what Rhule preaches. Four games in November will reveal whether Rhule players are buying it. Rhule himself acknowledged that if it didn’t translate into four well-played quarters against UCLA, the moral victory in Columbus wasn’t worth it.

A selective look at the statistics gives Nebraska fans reason to be hopeful. The Huskers had 18 first downs to Ohio State’s 11. The running game was spotty as usual, but they still outscored the Buckeyes 121-64. The overall offensive totals were remarkably similar, 285 yards for OSU, 273 for NU, who had a 10-minute possession lead over the Buckeyes but were able to find the end zone only once. The Buckeyes got two long touchdown passes from Will Howard on a pair of blown coverages in the first half, and not much else until their final game-winning drive.

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 has not been reliable. He took a step forward in Columbus, but he has a lot more to prove in November, starting next week against UCLA, a game the Big Red must win before Rhule’s talk of turning losing mentalities into winning mentalities and into championship mentalities can take seriously.

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