Dave Feit: Tough Decisions After a Trouncing

Mickey Joseph is striving to salvage the season after Oklahoma’s rout of the Huskers

Is this a wasted season?

I understand the concern. Especially after a blowout loss drops Nebraska to 1-3.

After an offseason of hope and change, the head coach is fired after just three games. The defensive coordinator is fired a week later. An interim coach is named, but fans are largely focused on debating their list of candidates for the full-time job.

Meanwhile, two thirds of the season remains to be played. But what can be accomplished? Nebraska would need to finish 5-3 to qualify for a bowl game. Even if the schedule, as advertised, eventually gets "easier," what is the point? Trying to salvage a positive ending feels like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube. It can't happen, so let's just start fresh.

Yeah, I can understand why fans and pundits feel this is a lost year.

But Trev Alberts and Mickey Joseph aren't punting on the 2022 season.

After Alberts fired Scott Frost, he said, "I think we owed it to the players and owed it our fans to give these players an opportunity these last nine games." I'll be honest: I thought that was lip service. I felt more like a justification for firing a coach before the buyout drops, than a directive to keep fighting.

But Trev means it. He said he "encouraged Mickey to be the head coach and make decisions as the head coach." In just one week, there have been a handful of decisions - big and small - that prove Joseph is willing to do what it takes to turn the season around.

Ultimately, I have no idea how Mickey Joseph's tenure at NU will work out. I don't know if he'll be here for eight more games or eighteen years. But it is obvious he is not going to spend the next two months as a placeholder for the next guy.

Joseph is not interested in wasting this season or wasting his opportunity. Sunday's firing of defensive coordinator Erik Chinander showed me Joseph will make tough decisions to leave this program better than he found it.

I respect the hell out of that.

Look: I'm not advocating for any coach to get the job - especially while it is technically still summer. I believe Mickey Joseph will get every opportunity to win the job, but I have no interest in evaluating his candidacy after every game. Let's review his body of work in November and see how his strengths and weaknesses compare to other viable candidates (i.e., not Urban Meyer).

Until then, I'm excited to see what Mickey Joseph can do. He's not quitting on this season, and neither am I.

Things I believe

Oklahoma might be the best team NU sees all year. The Sooners came into the game ranked #6. They looked - and played - like a top-10 team should. They were faster, stronger and noticeably better than Nebraska at many positions.

Oklahoma's offense is everything that NU struggles with: misdirection, play-action fakes, good offensive line, speed for days, and a lightning fast tempo. I wasn't blown away by quarterback Dillon Gabriel (I think he may have been throwing left-handed in an attempt to keep the game interesting), but OU will put up points on a lot of teams.

So, I'm not going to overreact too much to what I saw … and I stayed for the entire game. The bad news is that Nebraska got blown out. The good news is outside of their trip to Ann Arbor, the Huskers won't see another team as good as Oklahoma.

This game should be a wake-up call. Did you see the talent disparity? Did you see the team without depth have no answers when their starters were exposed? Did you see the mass exodus of fans after halftime? I guarantee Trev Alberts saw those things.

Let me be clear: None of what happened Saturday is Mickey Joseph's fault. A blowout of this magnitude has been a long time coming. You'll remember how Scott Frost tried to get out of the Oklahoma series in March 2021. This was why. It is telling that Frost and Bill Moos were more willing to deal with the fallout from chickening out of a storied rivalry than actually play the game. Frost knew the Sooners would expose the flaws in this program. Unfortunately, Mickey Joseph got left holding the check.

This game was a perfect illustration of how far the Nebraska program is from the top 10. If Nebraska fans and administrators want to get back to the top 10, they'll need a coach who can recruit like crazy, develop (and keep) depth, have a detailed plan, and put in the time and effort to see it through. It can be done, but it will require finding the right guy and helping him be successful.

Mark Whipple can script a great opening act. Let's appreciate the first four drives of Nebraska's games under Mark Whipple:

Northwestern: 8 plays, 75 yards, touchdown
North Dakota: 8 plays, 87 yards, touchdown
Georgia Southern: 3 plays, -1 yard, punt
Oklahoma: 6 plays, 82 yards, touchdown.

While that Georgia Southern drive - spoiled by a second-down sack - breaks the streak, it's worth noting that the Huskers' next drive in that game was 9 plays, 75 yards and a touchdown.

On those four opening drives, Casey Thompson is 15-17 passing for 208 yards and two touchdowns. This is where my mind goes to the old Steven Wright bit: "Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff?" If NU can move the ball with ease on their opening drive, why can't they have similar success throughout the game - or repeat the script later on?

Obviously, it doesn't work that way. NU struggled mightily on offense between that first drive and when OU emptied its bench. But I'm encouraged that this offense can move the ball.

Things I don't know

When do we acknowledge that the OU-NU "rivalry" isn't very good anymore? Can we be honest for a minute: the Oklahoma - Nebraska series hasn't been that great since the two teams stopped playing on Black Friday almost 30 years ago.

Since the Big XII started in 1996, there have been four OU-NU games decided by a touchdown or less. There have also been five games decided by 27 points or more.

I completely understand why this series was scheduled, and why there is another home and home planned for the end of this decade. It's fun to celebrate your history, get the guys back together and reminisce about the good old days. The older fans (such as myself) can remember when that game was an annual elimination game for the national championship.

But since the Big 8 died, too many of the matchups had featured a national championship caliber team (1996 and 1997 Nebraska, or 2004 and 2008 Oklahoma) against a bad opponent with a familiar helmet. Yes, the games in 2001, 2005, 2009, and 2010 were fun, but conference stakes are no longer on the line. The most notable thing about the 2030 game in Lincoln will be an SEC team playing in Lincoln for the first time in decades.

Will Casey Thompson finish the season with positive rushing yards? As you likely know, when a quarterback is sacked, the yardage lost goes against his rushing totals. After being sacked four times by the Sooners (for a total of -30 yards), Casey Thompson's season rushing yardage is -19.

In the 21st century, Tanner Lee has the lowest rushing total by a Nebraska QB: -97 yards in 2017. Lee was sacked 24 times in 2017. Thompson is at 11 through four games. Thompson is a better runner than Lee, but I don't see Nebraska calling very many designed runs going forward.

The good news is Thompson likely will not have the lowest rushing total in the last 50 years. In 1973, Dave Humm lost 123 yards on 52 attempts. (Sacks were not kept as an official statistic until 1981).

What does this team look like against Indiana in two weeks? The old cliché is a team makes the biggest jump between its first and second games of the season.

Obviously, OU wasn't the first game of the season, but it was the first under Mickey Joseph.

Nebraska has a bye week before its next game. The Huskers can (and should) go back to basics. Figure out what works and focus on that. Patch as many holes as possible. Identify guys on the 150-man roster who can help.

Look: there are dozens of issues on this team. It is unrealistic to expect any coach to fix four years' worth of problems in less than a month. But a focus on fundamentals, physicality and positivity can make a difference. I'm really interested to see what this team looks like - in all three phases - when it takes the field against Indiana on Oct. 1.

I don't know what kind of record Mickey Joseph will put up as interim coach, but I suspect the team will be better than it was in its first four games.

5 Things I loved

Mickey Joseph, trailblazer. Coming into Saturday's game, Nebraska had played 1,370 games across 133 seasons. This was the first time the team was led by a black head coach. Even if you don't care about such things (you should, by the way) I hope we can appreciate what that moment must have felt like for Mickey and those who came before him.
Mickey Joseph, leader. Positivity. Energy. Passion. He was the first one out to encourage, congratulate and coach up his players after every series. Before the fourth quarter, he led an entire team huddle on the sidelines. When was the last time that happened?
Mickey Joseph, fashionista. On Saturday, Nebraska Football wore striped pants as part of their regular uniform (i.e., not part of an alternate like the Georgia Southern game) for the first time since 2017. May the stripes live forever.
Trey Palmer. Ten of Nebraska's 21 completions were to Palmer. Trey finished with a game-high 92 yards. I love seeing the promising return man getting opportunities on both the kickoff and punt return teams.
Chubba Purdy. A silver lining from the blowout loss was the opportunity for NU's backup quarterback to take snaps in a live game. Purdy looked good in his first outing. He showed a good ability to scramble, which will serve him well on this team.

Honorable mention: Gabe Ervin Jr., Ajay Allen, backup punter Timmy Bleekrode, Zach Wiegert's "screwed in the orange" t-shirt, the fan who won $5,000 kicking a field goal during a timeout, anybody who watched until the end of the game.

5 Areas for improvement

Defense. I said earlier that OU's offense appeared custom built to exploit NU's weaknesses. The artists formerly known as Blackshirts had another embarrassing performance. Interim defensive coordinator Bill Busch has his work cut out for him.
Pass protection. First quarter, tied at 7. Oklahoma goes three and out, and NU has a great opportunity to regain momentum. But Casey Thompson is sacked on back-to-back plays. Nebraska punts. Oklahoma drives down and scores. On the next drive, Thompson is sacked again. NU punts again. OU scores again, and suddenly it’s 21-7 and the Huskers have no chance. Thompson and Purdy were running for their lives at times.
Defensive secondary. The cornerbacks and safeties have a tough job, and I suspect that brash confidence is a big part of being successful. But I can do without the celebrations after drawing a penalty, the quarterback makes a bad throw, or any other incompletion where your biggest accomplishment was "being the closest person to the receiver." Especially when you're losing. I think I'll stop here.
Pulling guard. There was a third-down running play, I think in the first half, where one of NU's guards pulled and tried to open a hole. I say "tried" because that guard hit the defender and fell backwards on his butt. Nebraska did not pick up the first down.
T-Shirt Couple. After the game, I saw a couple wearing custom t-shirts. His said "Hire Urban Meyer." Hers said "I want my Bo-friend back." I'd wear an "Iowans for Texas" shirt before I'd wear either one of those.