Well that was a heart-crushing loss last Saturday. Get ready for another one.

It’s Northwestern

Hear me out. Almost every single year the Northwestern game has been close until the final whistle. The only exception was in 2014 when we wore, my personal favorite, the all white alternate uniforms with the chrome facemark.

It doesn't matter who Northwestern plays, unless they have a meltdown it’s always a hard-fought game. Northwestern has gotten the best of us the past two seasons, both of which were in overtime. Northwestern might not have a great record, but they’ll put up a fight.

The Kool-Aid Was TOO Strong

I’ll admit, even I drank way too much of the Kool-Aid this offseason. I’m sure most of us did. Let’s face it, we don’t have the players for B1G football yet. Frost and co. need time to recruit the players for their system.

Mike Riley hurt this program, and he will continue to hurt this program for the next few years until his players are gone. Nothing against those players, but not all of them fit what Frost is trying to do.

Adrian Martinez

Speaking of players, I hope this is the only time I have to write this as one of the reasons we’re going to lose. Martinez has looked horrendous at times this year, in others he’s looked great. He looked especially bad against Ohio State, and Northwestern is probably the second toughest defense we’ll have faced this year.

Granted, it’s not all Martinez’s fault. He needs way better protection, and he needs his receivers to get open. That being said, he still can't overthrow easy passes to receivers. If he puts the ball on the money to Wan’Dale Robinson on the lucky interception play that’s a touchdown. That could’ve settled down the team and got them into the game.

I don’t solely blame Martinez for the offensive performance. I believe he’s putting a lot of pressure on himself and that’s causing him to make errant throws and put the ball on the ground. If Nebraska is going to win this game they need him to clear his mind and just go and play football.

Penalties and Turnovers

Even if it’s luck, Nebraska can’t turn the ball over if they want to win this game. It’s hard to lose one turnover, but when they turn it over three or four times in a game that’s almost impossible to come back from.

The penalties need to stop. Frost needs to tell his kick return and punt return teams to just fair catch the ball. The refs make it a point to throw a flag on every one of our returns when the same stuff happens to us.

Northwestern’s QB is Hunter Johnson

Hunter Johnson will be starting at quarterback for the wildcats. He’s only started a few games, and that can cause problems. When a defense doesn’t have a lot of film on players it makes it hard to prepare.

This week will be interesting to see if Eric Chinander and the gang can prepare enough. Obviously last week wasn’t a stellar performance. Can they play well enough that the Huskers come home wearing black against Indiana?