"Gimmies" are part of the equation for every team. Some teams just hope to become bowl eligible, even if they have to base it on their own gimmies, while they themselves are gimmies for the stronger teams. For teams such as Nebraska with higher expectations, every season includes a few gimmies, a few decent teams, and a few toughies. We hope to come out on the positive end on the tougher games and avoid upsets in the others. That's the way it is for everyone, every year.
Some schedules are harder than others, and you get the short end of the stick some years in the home/away splits, but the cream tends to rise to the top in college football anyway.
We're likely to be 9-3 again, give or take a single game, which doesn't necessarily mean someone should be fired, it also doesn't necessarily mean we should be happy. It's too myopic to look at the W-L record alone and reach that conclusion, but you guys are all quibbling over silly crap and trying to reduce our expectations and relevance down to single issues. It's not even June yet, and we've absolutely run out of things to talk about!