Husker football suffered their third straight loss on Saturday, falling to UCLA 27-20. It’s the Huskers third straight loss between the bye weeks.
“We’re obviously very disappointed,” Matt Rhule said postgame. “A tremendous missed opportunity for us. That was a game we had every opportunity to win. Even when we got down, we clawed our way back in it. Didn’t make the plays we needed to make.”
UCLA started with a long drive that looked like the Bruins were a Big Ten mainstay, taking the opening eight minutes of the game, settling for a 25 yard field goal. The Huskers were only able to run three plays in the first quarter, which only resulted in two yards. UCLA would respond with another long drive where the Bruins finished with a touchdown. UCLA ran 21 plays in the first quarter to Nebraska’s 3.
The Huskers would quickly get on the board, with the help of a UCLA unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on 4th down from Oluwafemi Oladejo that resulted in a touchdown. Dante Dowdell would punch in a score from 4 yards out to make the game 13-7, but UCLA put up another short field goal to keep Nebraska out of reach. The Huskers had the ball in the final 1:13 of the half, but elected to go into the locker room down 13-7.
The second half, with a Husker possession to start off, quickly went into disaster, as Dylan Raiola was picked off by Kain Medrano, and Medrano would take it back 38 yards to the house.
“That was a play-action pass down to Thomas (Fidone) down the middle of the field, into cover two, he was running free was going to be an explosive play, and behind him was an incut and he threw the incut.” Rhule said.
After Nebraska turned the ball over on downs, UCLA took three plays to score a touchdown, this time on a 48 yard connection from Ethan Garbers to Kwazi Gilmer.
Nebraska’s second touchdown was helped out by another UCLA unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, with Ale Kaho being the guilty party for the Bruins. Raiola went 5-5 passing on the drive that was capped off with a 8 yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Neyor.
Late in the fourth quarter, Raiola was injured deep in UCLA territory after a six yard rush to the UCLA 2. Heinrich Haarberg stepped in at quarterback, as remained in that position the rest of the game. All three of Nebraska’s touchdown drives were aided by UCLA unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, and could not have come at a better time, as the flag was on fourth and goal from the 3, which gave Nebraska a fresh set of downs and setting up another Dowdell punch in from a yard out.
UCLA was forced to a three and out on the next drive, but the final drive heroics were all for naught, as Haarberg’s pass was intercepted at the Bruin 13 to effectively end the game.
The 5-4 Huskers have another bye week before the Huskers travel to the Golden State. Nebraska takes on USC on November 16.
