Big Red is Big Mad
Cornhusker fans probably should have gone to the epic volleyball game in Lincoln instead of traveling to Minneapolis where something resembling a football game took place on Thursday night
Nebraska fans, take solace in the fact that Minnesota fans wasted the same amount of their lives watching the same dreadful display of football you just lived through.
The much anticipated ‘Sold Out, Gold Out’ at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis contained a healthy smattering of red. Nebraska fans took up about a quarter of the stadium and made their presence known for most of the second half.
Quarterback Jeff Sims provided the first touchdown of the game in the 3rd quarter on one of the most broken broken plays you can imagine. One of my favorite college football reporters, Ari Wasserman at The Athletic, refers to plays such as this as college football “grab ass,” and damn if that is not a perfect term for exactly what happens here.
It’s pretty rare to a quarterback commit a double-dribble and throw a touchdown pass on the same play, and until about the two-minute mark of the fourth quarter it felt like it would be the only touchdown of the game, which is still one more touchdown than this game deserved.
Minnesota exhibited a pretty punchless offense all night, but managed to tie it up with 2:12 to go when quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis found receiver Daniel Jackson in the corner of the endzone. Jackson did a pretty sweet Jumpman impression to get his back foot in bounds too!
Then safety Tyler Nubin showed why a lot of folks were surprised he returned to Minnesota for another season of college football instead of entering his name in the draft this April.
As Sims had the Huskers driving with a chance to get out of Minneapolis with a win, Nubin trapped him into thinking Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda was open. Nubin broke on the ball like a young Harrison Smith, made the pick and returned the ball to the 50, giving the Golden Gophers just enough for them to get into field goal range and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in hilarious and “grab ass” fashion.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to make a play and have Gus Johnson’s high-pitched voice on the TV screen,” Nubin said postgame. “I’m definitely going to have to watch that one back.”
A lot of questions still surround this Gopher team, but Nubin is a star on par with Antoine Winfield Jr. He’s Him. It’s nice to see that CEO of the Reese’s Senior Bowl Jim Nagy thinks so too.
https://twitter.com/JimNagy_SB/status/1697416378511187998?s=20
The quarter of the stadium that had been chanting “GO BIG RED” fell silent and even as a neutral observer, it was hard not to laugh at them. Any time these “brand name” college football teams that haven’t done much of anything for two decades snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is good for all of us.
A Nebraska fan sitting near me wore a shirt that said “You Should Have Seen Us in the 90s, though” and it made me laugh. Well, it made me laugh until I remembered I was wearing my Oregon State 1942 Rose Bowl Champions shirt from Homefield and then I just felt attacked.
At any rate, two Big Ten teams gave us a scintillating performance to start the season. What a fun brand of football USC, UCLA, Washington, and that team 40 miles south of Corvallis is leaving the Pac 12 in ruin for.
After watching from the stands on Thursday night, I’m having a real difficult time not going full Menelaus in Troy and screaming in the faces of our treasonous enemies, “IS THIS WHAT YOU LEFT ME FOOOOOOOOOORRRRRR?!?!?!?!?!”
It’s a terrible movie, but dude is really matching my feelings here.