Oregon 17, Nebraska 14: Another fourth quarter, another Nebraska football collapse

It’s late. I’m old, I’m tired, and Nebraska football just gave up 11 points in the fourth quarter to lose 17-14 to Oregon. If you went to bed before the end of this one, you made the right choice.

Nebraska led 14-6 early in the fourth quarter. Oregon’s offense totaled 91 yards in three quarters. Then Dan Lanning pulled Brock Thomas, put in Dylan Raiola and our former quarterback drove the Ducks down the field twice. The second drive went 20 plays and 82 yards and ended with a four-yard touchdown pass to Jamari Johnson and a two-point conversion with 28 seconds left.

It’s been two weeks in a row. We lost 20-17 to Indiana. We lost 17-14 to Oregon. Two of the best defenses in college football, and we scored 17 and 14.

My son left the house, but if he had been here tonight, he would have looked at me and said two words: pure cinema. This is what we are. The way we fell apart, the way the little things beat us, the old quarterback coming back to beat us in the final minute. We couldn’t write it better.

What Oregon showed everyone

Here’s how I think the game played out. Oregon showed all the remaining defenses on our schedule what to do against Nebraska. Stop the run, put pressure on Anthony Colandrea and wait.

Colandrea finished 18 of 33 for 164 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Nebraska totaled 207 yards of offense. You can’t win in the Big Ten when your quarterback is also your running game.

We didn’t play very well. We gave points to Oregon on some stupid little mistakes. Archie Wilson’s knee fell on a punt and gave Oregon the ball in our red zone. Colandrea’s interception did the same thing. Field goals mean a lot in a game that ends 17-14.

It’s the little things that keep Nebraska from overcoming the difficulty against good teams. We keep saying “could have won” and “almost”. This could be a good team. We’re not there yet, and that’s pretty obvious.

On the field, where things are won and lost

I know what the comments are going to say. Matt Rhule is a used car salesman and should be fired. Dana Holgorsen is a terrible coach. The waiting time. Blah, blah, blah.

Here is what I see on the ground.

We’re not blocking well enough. We’re better at blocking than we’ve been in five or six years, and it’s still not good enough to beat good teams. We are inconsistent. We don’t finish the blocks. Some of our receivers don’t block at all. On some plays they look like they don’t know who to block or don’t want to, and if that’s the case, they shouldn’t be there.

I don’t think there’s much to complain about in Holgorsen’s offense. The play calls aren’t bad. They’re just not stuck, are they. What we needed against Oregon was a real running game, and we didn’t get that.

Colandrea holds the ball. At the start of the year, against teams we dominated, he was fast. Fast processing, fast decisions. The last two weeks he hasn’t been there either. The receivers come out of their breaks and open up the field, and he chooses not to throw.

The difference between him and Dylan Raiola last year was speed. Dylan waited and was sent away because he was slow. Colandrea waits and waits and waits, and sometimes he comes out of the bag because he’s not slow. This is how he finds himself as our best runner for a third consecutive week.

The defense was quite astonishing. We gave up 20 to Indiana and 17 to Oregon, and those teams have good players. I don’t know if the defense wore down in the fourth quarter. They probably did, because our offense couldn’t do anything but score 14 points.

Why don’t I throw away the season

Earlier in the week, everyone on social media expected us to go to Eugene and beat Oregon. I didn’t understand. It was a night match in Autzen, on their pitch, which started at 8 p.m., their time. I thought it would be tight. I hoped we would finally overcome the obstacle. We didn’t, and that’s disappointing.

Then there is the rest of Saturday. No. 2 Notre Dame lost. Alabama lost. Texas lost. Ohio State beat Indiana and lost its starting quarterback, Julian Sayin, for several weeks. If you fired every coach who lost on Saturday, half the sport would be looking for a new staff Sunday morning.

Every week in college football is now a breeze. Many people will call this parity. I have a different theory. This applies to the entire sport and I’m not offering it as an excuse for Nebraska. We pay a lot of young players, and they get paid whether they work hard or not. A team works hard one week, wins, and the next week the attitude is “I worked hard last week.” Then they go out and lose to someone they shouldn’t.

I look at some of our offensive players and wonder about that. The defense seems well coached and plays cohesively. The offense plays some shots well and takes others.

I still think we’re going to have a pretty decent year. We can probably beat the teams we outperform on our schedule: Maryland, Rutgers, Illinois.

Ohio State? Probably not, but who knows what happens now that they’ve lost their quarterback. Iowa? Probably not, because Iowa is disciplined and plays together all the time.

This is the big key for Nebraska. Discipline. It shows up in penalties, in bad snaps, in a punter’s knee hitting the turf. We were the best 3-9 team ever, losing games by one score every weekend. Now we are a better team that still finds ways to lose them.

It’s a tough and really disappointing loss. I watched YouTube to stay awake, and I swore a lot more there than I will here.