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Five Reasons Nebraska Will Lose: Wisconsin

Five reasons Nebraska is falling to 0-5 on Saturday

Wisconsin v Nebraska Photo by Steven Branscombe/Getty Images

This week I’m trying to stay on top of things and I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon even though the last thing I want to think about right now is Nebraska football. At the beginning of the season I was really hoping Nebraska was going to be 5-0 going into this week looking unstoppable because I have a sure-fire reason we’re going to lose this game, and people were going to think I was crazy. I’m still going to include it because I’m tired of writing the same thing every week. Let’s get this over with.

The Bonehead Mistakes

I think Frost said all he could in the post-game press conference. This team does look like the most undisciplined team in college football. It’s looked that way for years, and I can’t even remember if they were more disciplined under Bill Callahan because I was too young. Bo Pelini might’ve been a strict coach to say the least, but he could never seem to get this team to play mistake free football. I’m tired of calling them little mistakes because they aren’t little, they’re huge mistakes that keep costing Nebraska wins this season. Frost said that he’s just going to role with the guys who are going to do things right all the time even if they’re not the most talented. After hearing Scott Frost say that it gave me hope. I don’t remember hearing Pelini ever say that, and that’s how you know he cares about this team. Nebraska is going to lose every game if it keeps roughing the quarterback on third down and hitting guys after they’ve been out of bounds for 10 minutes.

The Offensive Line

In my opinion the offensive line looked a little bit better on Saturday it still isn’t up to the standard that the Pipeline should be. One of the biggest problems this line has is that it can’t get a push to get one yard on fourth down. That needs to change. I don't care if they need to put in the kicker at guard, but that needs to change immediately. Later in the game when it was 4th and 3 the offense tried to do a bootleg pass but Adrian Martinez couldn’t find an open receiver and ended up getting sacked. Usually I would’ve been annoyed that Nebraska didn’t run the ball, but when our offensive line can’t get the running back one yard there needs to be another option. That other option failed miserably when Martinez got sacked. The line play has seemed so inconsistent I don’t know whether I’ll have hair by the time I’m 30.

Defense

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the losses on the offense as much as I blame the defense. I do commend the defense for giving Nebraska a chance to comeback and have a chance to tie the game in the 4th quarter. That being said, Nebraska only go to David Blough one time on Saturday. When the corners aren't able to cover the receivers then getting pressure on the QB is the only way to stop them. I have no idea why we didn’t blitz more, maybe it’s because Blough is a slippery dude and was able to break out of the pocket a couple times and pick up a first down. Nebraska has gotten almost 600 yards on offense in two games and lost both of them because of the undisciplined nature of this defense. I don’t even know what to say at this point because it seems like every facet of the defense needs a lot of work.

Wisconsin is a Talented Team

As I’ve said in weeks past I haven’t been able to watch much college football outside of Nebraska football because I’ve been at three of the four games, and that takes up pretty much the whole day. One thing that I know from years past is that Wisconsin always has a good offensive line and defensive line. Both are going to wreak havoc on Nebraska this Saturday. I don’t know which one will be worse, but I have a feeling its offensive line is going to give Jonathan Taylor a good chance to break the rushing record. Wisconsin has given Nebraska fits since it joined the Big Ten in 2011. Nebraska’s only win against the Badgers was in 2012 when the Huskers came back to win in Lincoln. Wisconsin’s talent and discipline are going to make sure this team stays on its losing streak.

We Play on My Birthday

I know this is a really stupid reason in some of your minds for me to write this as one of the reasons, but let me explain. I have been alive when Nebraska has played on October 6, 2001, 2007 and 2012. Nebraska has only won in one of those matchups, which was against Iowa State in 2001. The other two matchups were against Missouri and Ohio State. Nebraska got blown out in both games and I truly expect that to happen again on Saturday. On the bright note Nebraska doesn’t play on my birthday until 2029 because of the leap year in 2024. Thankfully that will hopefully be Frost’s eleventh season as the head coach and maybe he can finally bring me happiness on my birthday. Trust me, I’m sure all of you think Nebraska is going to lose anyway, but we are going to lose this week. Take it to the bank.