Instant takes as Nebraska snaps seven-game losing streak to Iowa
Here are three instant takes on Nebraska’s first win over Iowa since 2014. The Huskers built a 17-0 lead at halftime, and held on for dear life in the second half.
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Once again, Nebraska’s defense did its job
The Huskers got off to an outstanding start on the defensive side of the ball.
Nebraska forced punts on consecutive Iowa possessions to start the game. Then Quinton Newsome made a titanic play. He came screaming off the edge to sack Iowa’s Spencer Petras to force a fumble and take Petras out of the game. The quarterback hadn’t turned the ball over a single time throughout the Hawkeye’s four-game winning streak.
With backup Alex Padilla in the game, Iowa put together their best drive yet. The Hawkeyes were on a roll and got to the Nebraska side of the 50 before a penalty stalled the drive and Eteva Mauga-Clements forced a key fumble.
In the first half, the Huskers held Iowa to 72 total yards and shutout a Big Ten West foe for the third consecutive game. Strong opening halves have been a staple of interim defensive coordinator Bill Busch’s defense in November. NU shutout Wisconsin and Minnesota in the first two quarters earlier this month. The Badgers were held to 111 first-half yards a week ago and Minnesota just 31 yards.
They did that without stating inside linebacker Luke Reimer. Mauga-Clements got the start in his place and led the way for Nebraska’s defense with seven tackles, two tackles for a loss, a sack and forced fumble.
The Huskers faltered early in the second half. Kaleb Johnson ripped off a 44-yard touchdown run for Iowa’s first points. It was just the fourth run of 20+ yards allowed by Nebraska since Busch took over. The drive traveled 80 yards, more than the Hawkeyes totaled in the first half.
Nebraska rallied after Iowa’s counterpunch. The Huskers did allow a pair of Iowa scores but when it came down to crunch time the defense got off the field, twice in the final four minutes. Chris Kolarevic picked off the game winning pass to give Nebraska the Heroes Trophy.
Iowa is far from the ’99 Rams, but Busch deserves a ton of praise for fixing a defensive unit that was left for dead in September.
Trey Palmer delivers an epic performance
Trey Palmer had been quiet the last few weeks. His 97 receiving yards in the last four weeks is less than half of his 237 yard total from the loss to Purdue. Palmer’s first four catches brought him to 111 yards on Friday. That included an 87-yard touchdown catch and run which was Nebraska’s longest play of the season and gave the Huskers a 7-0 lead.
It didn’t take him long to strike a second time.
Casey Thompson found Palmer wide open for a 18-yard score with 10:51 left in the second quarter. That catch had another layer of significance. Palmer passed Stanley Morgan Jr. (2018) as the Huskers’ single-season leader in receiving yardage. He finished with six catches for 138 yards in the first half.
Palmer was relatively quiet in the second half. He had a crucial catch of three yards to begin the fourth quarter that moved the chains on third down. Yet that was only one of his three catches in the second half. Nebraska failed to return to what gave them the lead in the first half.
An angry Palmer is one of, if not the best, receiver in the Big Ten and his minimal involvement in the second half is part of why the Huskers struggled to pull away. Retaining him will be a top priority for Nebraska’s next head coach.
A stepping stone for the Huskers’ coming future
It would have been pretty easy to give up at a lot of points this season.
But at no point during these final four weeks did the players or coaching staff allow the chaos swirling on the outside to distract them. The Huskers competed in and very well should have won three of their final four games. That’s worth something. Beating Iowa today? That’s worth a lot, even if it was too close for comfort.
Not only is it the Huskers’ first win in the series in the past eight years, but it breaks a 14-game Iowa winning streak in November. Oh, and it likely denies Iowa a trip to the Big Ten Championship, too.
Crediting Nebraska for not quitting on the year seems like a pretty low bar. Undeniably, it is. That’s where the program is right now. But clearing low bars and successively building on past experience is how a new culture is born.
The stark reality facing the Huskers’ next coach is this:
Nebraska is now 19-37 in its last five seasons and hasn’t made a bowl game since 2016. NU is the only Power Five program without a postseason appearance in the last six years. This team has lost 13 of 15 one score games in the past two years.
It’s a sickening streak of futility for a once proud program.
That feeling is made even worse by thoughts of what this year might have been.
Talking to a Husker fan about Ireland, onside kicks or Georgia Southern in the next few months is a bad idea. Other moments of hope flashed throughout the season such as an October that was filled with a pair of wins and plenty of promise. That hope died when Casey Thompson left the field against Illinois with 6:31 to go in the second quarter.
At that moment, a majority of the Nebraska faithful turned their attention to the looming coaching search, understandably so. Wanting to move on from mediocrity is no sin.
But the players and coaches didn’t. With the win today, Nebraska has jumpstarted its offseason with the hire of a new head coach on the horizon.
The last five years were nothing short of an abject disaster for Husker football. What comes in the next five years may be better. Perhaps it won’t. Nebraskans can only hope that this next period in the program’s history finds a way to build and raise its standard.
For now, Husker fans can just enjoy a hard-fought win.
