Worst Loss of the Riley Era

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2015 Purdue was such a dumpster fire of a game in a clusterf*ck of a season that it should have it's own category. On the plus side, when you hit bottom -- and that really was the bottom -- you have nowhere to go but up, and the Huskers did rally from there, beating #6 Michigan State, playing #3 Iowa pretty close (but sloppy), and executing a solid enough gameplan in the gift bowl against UCLA to warrant some optimism. And then they start 2016 by going 7 - 0. And then losing in overtime to #11 Wisconsin at Camp Randall. So maybe the OSU blowout the next week is a hangover. It happens. By they time they come into the Iowa game, Nebraska is still #17 at 9 - 2 with a lot to prove.

Long way of saying I'd like to nominate Iowa's 40 - 10 beatdown of the lifeless Huskers in 2016. That's when I got the sinking feeling nothing was going to change. 

 
husker_fan_from_sweden said:
62-3 Ohio State at home or the 56-14 loss against Iowa.

Both teams could have dropped a hundred burger on the huskers if they kept the foot on the gas pedal. It was like we'd traded places with the 90's huskers and some of their opponents they throttled in the day. It wasn't how good they were, just how ill prepared we were the last couple of years.

Those were the worst because it was the first time my grandfather, ( an 80 year old lifelong husker fan), and parents had stopped watching the game long before it was over because you knew the outcome very early on. I watched every single game of the Riley era all the way through and Scott Frost is an answered prayer.
 
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You watched every minute of every game when MR was coach? Were you captured by the talliban? Watching all those games had to be much worse than being waterboarded. I hope you had an adequate amount of alcohol to dull the pain.

 
I selected NIU. That started it all and once Eichorst was given the pink slip, my confidence came back and I trusted Bounds and Green. Although I was vocally against the MR hire and wanted him gone after his inaugural season, it worked out better than I thought it could. Still, that NIU loss is one that is unacceptable no matter how you spin it.

 
NIU. There is no reason a mid-major squad (respectable though they may be) like that should come in to OUR sold-out field and punk our storied program with NINETY-FOUR YEARS of stadium history. A field that the men in red didn't lose a game for SEVEN YEARS  on at one point. A field that saw incredible wins over top-rated teams, games played that had national significance. 

It was a death knell of a program that had built itself through decades prior on passion, tradition, and consistency. Callahan almost had his NIU, but pulled out the win vs Ball St. in '07. This game was completely different - from pick sixes to lifeless offense, it absolutely exposed what a weak shell the once mighty Nebraska program had become, how lackluster coaching and scheme decimates a blue-blood. 

From the A.D. down the GA's, this was a failure of epic proportions. 

 
Is it correct to have Purdue in both lists for worst loss and best win? Knowing the games were from different years is not keeping my head from exploding :blink:   Also, good job keeping the number of choices between the two polls at .500 (5 wins & 5 losses)

 
The Purdue loss was the ultimate of ultimate losses.  The team couldn't go any lower.......then they lost to Northern Illinois.  Before NIU game, the thin thread Riley was hanging by was fraying badly.  That game snapped it and sealed the deal.  

 
MichiganDad3 said:
You watched every minute of every game when MR was coach? Were you captured by the talliban? Watching all those games had to be much worse than being waterboarded. I hope you had an adequate amount of alcohol to dull the pain.
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Copious amounts. Call it ill advised and masochist or whatever but I wanted to see who persevered through the adversity and who didn't.

 
husker_fan_from_sweden said:
Copious amounts. Call it ill advised and masochist or whatever but I wanted to see who persevered through the adversity and who didn't.
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Right there with you.  Wanted to see them still fighting until the bitter end.  Surely, they have a come back in them, or at least make it look respectable.... pie in the sky thoughts.

My choice, though ... has to be the NIU game.  There were a smattering of more or less "feasible" excuses for the other 18 terrible losses, but the NIU game just finally did me in.  That's the one that single handedly turned me from eternal optimist to someone who flat out knew there was no hope for the coaching staff, and they needed to removed pronto.  That still has me completely irked.  Irked that TLee threw pick after pick, and was allowed to continue to do so - TLee gave up more points than the defense did, ffs.  Irked that there was no energy or leadership anywhere on the team.  Irked that complacency had set in and they were not even going to fight any more.

THEN, irked even more when SE told us to "Hang in there".  

 
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