Wow I thought I got upset after losses...
Anyway, two quick points. We've been spoiled on defense up until this year since the Pelini era began. Our first two years we had a freak of nature, once in a generation type of player in Suh that made any scheme we ran damn near work by default... by himself. Combine that with '09 and a secondary who was "getting it," and it's easy to see why those two years, '09 especially, fielded such amazing defenses. And then last year, the aforementioned secondary had grown into their own, and played dominant football all year long. Hell, 3/4 of that secondary got drafted, and both starting CBs from the 2010 defense were/will be 1st round draft picks.
This is the first year we haven't had a Suh-like talent or a stacked secondary, and it shows. Not to mention the fact we've been bitten by the injury bug in a significant way, losing Crick and Fonzie for extended time.
Secondly, I agree with whoever said our losses seem worse this year. I know this year did not stack up well, what with entering a new conference and being thrown to the wolves with the schedule we got. And some of those wins have been sensational... so much so that they damn near put me into cardiac arrest. But this year our losses have really ripped my heart out personally. We've been absolutely embarrassed and gotten throttled twice on national television, including one Gameday game. And we totally failed to show up against a lesser opponent in Northwestern, and lost that game too.
I know it can be said that even the best teams have off weeks. And I know a couple of teams from Oklahoma that would certainly back that up

. Or Wisconsin for that matter. But it just sickens me to see us shoot ourselves in the foot and lose to teams that are worse than us.
Oh well, at least this year I don't have to watch games I know we should have had in the bag (2010 CCG vs. OU, Texas '09 and 10, ISU '09) slip away from us.