As Purdue closed out the third quarter by scoring their third unanswered touchdown to go up 42 – 16 , this Huskers’ season reached a turning point.
If you stuck it out to the end to see the Big Red almost steal a victory with a 29 point fourth quarter, congratulations. You are not afraid to go down with the ship.
Yesterday’s game was 3 hours and 45 minutes of gallows humor at its finest. If there was a scene in Titanic where some rapscallions from steerage said F-it and broke into the liquor storage instead of trying to escape, that would have been the prefect summation of what it was like to watch this game in an empty bar where the staff outnumbered us Husker faithful who showed up for our weekly gut punch. (And no, the scene with the Brandy sipping Guggenheim does not count. He was far too classy.)
Hats off to Ryker Fyke. Dude played his ass off and made up for running game that didn’t make the trip to Indiana by throwing for over 400 yards and leading the Huskers to 45 points but with the Bankshirts getting torched worse than Thích Quảng Đức, his heroic effort was all for naught.
At the rate things have gone so far this season, it honestly won’t be surprising if the Huskers somehow end up rolling Michigan State next Saturday.
On to the assorted random stuff!
Headlines if the New York Post covered Husker football
Huskers step in big pile of Purdue-do
The Huskers’ Season is Pur-done
Purdue or do not. There is no try. (The Huskers did not try.)
Boilermakers run a train on the Huskers
Mike Purrriley Won’t Be Purring Over Losing to Purdue.
Our Score Prediction
Left the house dressed like a champion and couldn’t have been farther off-base with the final score. Get your own “Gamer Tee” at Nebraska Red Zone.
Mike Riley’s Balloon Watch: We have reached DEFCON 1.
Sam Mckewon: Throws absolute hot fire in his post game video. It is a performance for the ages and is a must watch.
Oddest Paragraph In Dirk’s Post Game Column About a Road Trip From Hell: Suddenly it’s 2:30, your iPhone is dead, your wife forgot hers and the baby is waking up. Another turn. Wrong. Another turn. Wrong.
Uh… Dirk, not keeping a phone charger in your car is just bad planning. You can get one for $8.99
And this leads to…
Important Piece of Life Advice #1: Even though you’ve been invited to a friend’s annual Halloween party for five years running, always take a moment to actually read the Evite to save yourself and your lovely wife the hassle and embarrassment of getting all dressed up, slogging through traffic for an hour, only to arrive in beautiful downtown Burbank to discover that the party happened the night before, on Halloween Eve. Lucky for us, it wasn’t a total surprise to our friends that I would pull such a move and they invited us in help them put a dent in the leftover party fare which included scarfing down a container of Jell-O shots.
Important Piece of Life Advice #2: Don’t skip dinner and hope that whatever nutrients are found in a container of Jell-O shots will be an appropriate substitute.
NUMBERS TO DEPRESS YOUR FRIENDS WITH
31,351: The announced attendance at Ross-Ade Stadium which holds 62,500. Yeah, right. Check out all the empty seats.
55: This was Purdue’s highest point total since they took down Indiana State 56-35 back in 2012. The last time the Boilermakers hung 60 or more points on a team was when they put up 62 against Indiana in 2008.
50: Back in the 1994 Matt Turman game, the Huskers ran the ball 50 times for 168 yards against Kansas State and three-yard-and-a-cloud-of-dusted their way to a 17-6 win on the road. Yesterday, the Huskers ran 22 times for 78 yards with Andy Janovich accounting for all of 2 yards on a pair goal line carries. This was the first time the Huskers have been held to under 100 yards rushing this season.
10: Purdue’s ten point margin of victory was the largest for any of the Huskers’ opponents this season. The next closest was BYU and a Hail Mary that led to a five point blowout. With Purdue’s win factored in, the Huskers’ average margin of defeat has ballooned to 3.83 points.
Even with the annual blowout or two factored in, the last four seasons under Bo Pelini, the Huskers’ average margin of defeat was 11.75 (2014), 16.25 (2013), 21 (2012), 19.75 (2011).
6: The number of Los Angeles fans who had the courage to step out into public to cheer-on the Huskers at our local watch site. We nearly cracked double digits when a UNL professor in town for a visit arrived with her son and daughter-in-law. She teaches leadership at Husker U. and had some great insights about how much work it really is to change the culture of a team but she still doesn’t like to see the Huskers losing how they are.
Back when the season was still full of hope, this place was standing room only.
