Barely losing to a team that has had multiple 9-win seasons and is a favorite to win the division is not exactly a “disastrous” start in my book.
Normally you'd be correct but Nebraska fans are flat out tired of losing games likes this. Like we may be approaching the point of them burning down Memorial Stadium over it. If I remember right Nebraska under Frost lost something like 20 single score games in the 4th Quarter with most of those being inside the final five minutes!
For Rhule to lose his FIRST GAME in the same way is almost too much to take.
I am a Nebraska fan, btw. I guess that wasn't clear from my first comment.
What most people seem to be missing is that a great many of those one-score losses were due to terrible coaching or just completely unbelievable mistakes by players. This game, by contrast, was lost by crucial turnovers, which is basically how every close game usually ends.
Yeah, there's also that moment every year, usually early on, when the tiniest, stupidest part of your brain is forced to go from "there's no reason we couldn't go undefeated" to "LOL, right, yeah, that was never gonna happen."
I also wouldn't say disastrous. But I'm not sure going from winning to losing by 1 score in the 4th was what big red was hoping for in the first full post frost season.
The problem for Huskers fans is that this is how Scott Frost tended to lose games. IIRC during his time as Head Coach Frost lost something like 20 one score games in the 4th quarter, with most of those losses happening in the final five minutes. This is exactly what just happened to the Huskers under new HC Matt Rhule. It's absolutely infuriating.
Of course not, but if you asked any of us before the game if we'd be happy with holding Minnesota to 13 and the game being within reach in the final minutes, we'd all have said that was a great result.