Tulsa World
It's Nebraska, which means Sooner Nation had better start holding its breath
Guerin Emig Sep 13, 2022
Updated 29 min ago
Oklahoma's Eric Gray runs the ball against Nebraska in their game Sept. 18, 2021, at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman.NORMAN — The question to select Oklahoma Sooners after practice Monday night: How many of Nebraska’s last 13 losses have been by single digits?
“I’d probably say nine,” tackle Anton Harrison said.
“Ten of them?” defensive end Ethan Downs guessed.
“Twelve,” defensive lineman Isaiah Coe said.
Getting warmer ...
“I think they’ve had 13 one-score games in the last year,” Brent Venables said Tuesday in the middle of his scouting report on Saturday’s OU-Nebraska game.
Close enough.
. . .
In an insane undercurrent to Nebraska football’s plunge into mediocrity since, really, a national runner-up 2001 season, all 13 Husker losses since Thanksgiving weekend 2020 have been by single digits.
“All 13?” Downs said Monday night.
“All of ‘em?” Harrison said.
All of ‘em.
And that, more than the storied OU-Nebraska rivalry and the presence of interim Huskers head coach Mickey Joseph and the living, screaming organism that Nebraska Memorial Stadium becomes every fall, is why Sooner Nation should hold its collective breath for 3½ hours Saturday.
“See?” Coe said when informed about the Huskers’ unlucky 13. “That’s why you have to be prepared.”
That’s why you can’t roll your eyes this week every time a member of the Sooners’ program swears they are in for ...
“A dogfight,” linebacker Danny Stutsman forecasted right after OU’s 33-3 dismissal of Kent State last Saturday night.
It is practically preordained.
At the close of Nebraska’s 3-9 2021 season, the Associated Press’ Eric Olson shared that the Huskers became the first college football team of the divisions era (since 1978) to lose nine single-digit games in one season. All but one of those setbacks were by one score.
This year's 1-2 Huskers have lost 31-28 to Northwestern and 45-42 to Georgia Southern this month, to extend their ruinous luck. It is barely conceivable outside two places – Lincoln, of course, and Norman, where the Sooners had better grasp how easily things could be very different in the build-up to Saturday.
They appear to understand.
Asked if he would be surprised to learn Nebraska’s single-digit losing streak stood at 13, tight end Daniel Parker said: “It wouldn’t. Those guys play their hearts out. I’ve seen some close battles that they’ve been in this year. They fought, but things just kinda didn’t go their way. It can happen like that in college football.”
“This is a team that easily could have been 8-4 or 9-3,” Coe said of last year’s Huskers.
They could easily be 3-0 this year. Scott Frost could still be on the job that Joseph took Sunday morning.
“Just snakebit for whatever reason,” Venables said.
OU’s head man would just as soon his Sooners turn from Nebraska’s misfortune and mind their own business. Maybe we should follow suit.
If Saturday is sure to come down to one score, maybe we should note OU’s 6-1 record in one-score games last year. Maybe we should note decisive players from that 6-1 record — Marvin Mims against Texas and Tulane, D.J. Graham against Nebraska and Eric Gray against West Virginia for example — will be in Lincoln.
Graham describes the ’22 Sooners, who led Kent State 7-3 at halftime before dialing up some poise, as “cool and collected.” That bodes well for this weekend.
So does something Downs said of the Huskers on Monday night: “We know they’re a great team. They take a ton of pride in how they play. We’re not underestimating them one bit. We’re going to prepare and go at it like it’s a game seven.”
“I feel like we’re gonna get their best. We’re gonna get everybody’s game seven, everybody’s best,” Harrison said. “I feel like if we come out how we need to, we prepare how we need to, it won’t be a single-digit game.”
Easy, big fella. It will very likely be a single-digit game. This is Nebraska you’re playing. The Huskers have known no other way since losing 41-23 to Illinois Nov. 21, 2020.
And while they know no other way than to lose single-digit games, you’d still better prepare to fight that Big Red dog until the last second expires.
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Today's athletes, many of today's fans, don't see anything special about OU playing Nebraska in Lincoln Saturday. This is the 12th year since the two programs were in the same conference, the 27th year since the series was an annual one. In addition, the two programs are not currently at the same level. Nebraska is in the midst of its worst stretch in about 80 years, while OU is competing for a spot in the CFP most years.
But this series will be a part of college football lore for as long as college football exists, because, on a chilly day in November 1971, Nebraska and Oklahoma played the greatest game in CFB's history.
