The past few years have been rough for Husker fans. And the few before that. And, for good measure, the few before that. Watching fourth quarter leads dwindle away or a team in scarlet and cream looking like they’d rather be anywhere else has become the norm.

While I will eternally root for the dudes, the excuses after yet another ugly or unnecessary loss have become more interesting than the games themselves in the past couple of years.

In that spirit, here are some prefabricated excuses to help Scott Frost through the year should the ball not bounce the right way.

Hopefully none of these are needed. But if they are…

@ Illinois 8/28

Man, we almost had them there. I like where the team is at though. They had some wrinkles we didn’t really anticipate. No way to know what a new coach at a new school was going to throw at us. Took us some time to get used to playing in a game again after a long offseason. Hotel didn’t do us any favors with no waffle machine.

Fordham 9/4

Frankly I thought this game was a joke and we wouldn’t actually end up playing it. By the time we all stopped laughing there wasn’t really any time to put any game plans together. We’ll get them next year. They agreed to come to Lincoln instead of Oklahoma. We have their number now.

Buffalo 9/11

They really play with some grit. We were out of sorts after some bad BBQ last night. That on top of the fans and media making everyone nervous really did us in. Looking at Buffalo Bills game tape instead of this really, really tough team we played here today is on me.

@Oklahoma 9/18

Look, there was a reason I tried to get out of this game. Frankly we shouldn’t even have been here today. Plane being delayed didn’t help anything. Yes I personally delayed it but still, another sign this never should have happened in the first place. They’re a tough team and it’s even harder to concentrate knowing they’ll be in a different conference soon. Luckily, we will never play them again.

@Michigan State 9/25

Two road games in a row really isn’t fair. It would have been much easier if they just showed up in Lincoln at the same time as Michigan in a few weeks and they could have played each other at our place. We could have gotten some extra practice in. Chalk this up to scheduling.

Northwestern 10/2

Nobody cares about football in their town so it’s easier for them to focus without all of the distractions. They don’t have a zealous fanbase or prodding media to worry about. We can probably just tell everybody we won because nobody will pay any attention anyway. They also have new facilities. Hard for us to compete with them while ours are still under construction.

Michigan 10/9

To be honest, the winged helmets threw us off. Some of the guys thought they would make their team actually start flying. Hard to recover from that. I’d also like to point out that Michigan has been good at basketball in the past as well. So much easier for a football program to relax when the basketball team can carry some of the weight for the athletic department.

@ Minnesota 10/16

Not going to make any excuses other than it’s a lot easier for kids to focus on coaches who have initials for a first name. They’re not caught up in how and why he was named ‘Scott’ or whatever his first name might be. Easier for his players to spell it too. Other than that and getting out-coached again, we really had a shot at this one. 

Purdue 10/30

Trains are heavy and fast. If you really pay attention, they’re everywhere. Think that got our guys off rhythm throughout the week as everywhere they went there seemed to be a train. Intersections, horns at night, you name it. That really effected our preparation this week. Didn’t help at all being on a train in Minnesota last week. That’s on me.

Ohio State 11/6

It’s really not fair we even have to play them sporadically. We’ve been in contact with the league and are hoping for a favorable outcome.

@ Wisconsin 11/20

This was a tough one. Really hard for us as Nebraska to go up against a team who does what we used to do well for so long. They develop players, are fundamentally sound, don’t beat themselves and play with a nasty edge on offense and defense. Think we were thrown by looking in a mirror and seeing a distant, aging reflection of what we used to be.

Iowa 11/26

We couldn’t tell if it was our fans or their sideline clapping throughout the game. We’re also still pretty tired from Thanksgiving. They should really consider moving this to another day or scrapping this series entirely. Next year I’ll have more of my players here and won’t have to keep cleaning up the culture the last guy shit out. 

Nick Allen is a stand-up comic who lives in Omaha. Catch him every weekday morning on the Todd N Tyler Show or see him live in Lincoln this Saturday night at the Storm Cellar. Follow Nick on Twitter at @NicksAllens.