To quote a Sonny and Cher song, “And the beat goes on, the beat goes on” — for Nebraska football.
Actually, the “beat” hasn’t been that long. Nebraska has only played USC seven times. But the Trojans have won six, with one tie, the sixth coming Saturday night at a blacked out Memorial Stadium, 21-17, a game the Huskers appeared to be on the way to winning.
Nebraska led 14-6 at halftime, limiting the 23rd-ranked Trojans to a pair of field goals and 178 total yards. They were averaging 530 yards of offense per game, tops in the country.
And the Blackshirts held them to 337 yards and half the points they were averaging. In the end, however, that wasn’t enough. Because the second half belonged to USC, sort of.
A turning point, you might say, came just 3 minutes after intermission, when the Trojans sacked quarterback Dylan Raiola for the first, and only, time, also forcing a fumble. Because Raiola suffered an ankle injury, which sidelined him for the remainder of the game, a decision by Coach Matt Rhule.
Had the decision been Raiola’s, he would’ve returned.
“He’s a tough-ass dude,” said guard Rocco Spindler, who has come back from injury this season. Allowing Raiola, who was limping on the sideline, to go back in “didn’t seem the respectable thing to do if he can’t run,” Rhule said.
He told Raiola, “I love you too much to ask you to play.”
Not that his replacement, freshman TJ Lateef, played poorly. He just wasn’t Raiola, who completed 10-of-15 passes for 91 yards and the Huskers’ first touchdown, 14 yards to Dane Key to cap Nebraska’s first possession, a 14-play, 75-yard drive. Nebraska was off and running.
Actually, Emmett Johnson was off and running. He accounted for 165 of the Huskers’ 188 yards rushing and scored their second touchdown on a 10-yard run with 1:37 left in the first half. At that point, Johnson had 76 yards on 15 carries.
“As always, I thought he was elite,” Rhule said.
Nebraska’s final drive began at its own 4-yard line with 3:27 remaining. The Huskers picked up one first down before facing fourth-and-1 at their 27. Johnson got the ball but Lateef and Johnson got tangled up just enough for Johnson to lose his balance and fall for no gain.
Nebraska started the second half as if it would be a replay of the first. On USC’s first play from scrimmage, after a Husker four-and-out, Andrew Marshall intercepted a Jayden Maiava pass at the Trojans’ 34-yard line. That initiated the series on which Raiola was injured, however.
The Huskers’ next possession began with tackle Elijah Pritchett helped off the field with an injury. He didn’t return. Even so, Nebraska drove to the USC 34-yard line, where the Huskers faced fourth-and-1. Rhule opted to send in Kyle Cunanan to attempt a 52-yard field goal.
The kick failed, and the Trojans went 66 yards on five plays, capped by Maiava’s 16-yard touchdown run. Maiava, who carried once in the previous two games, carried 11 times for 62 yards, complementing running back King Miller, who finished with 129 yards and the winning touchdown.
Miller also rushed for a 2-point conversion following Maiava’s touchdown.
Cunanan kicked a 39-yard field goal with 12:53 left in the game for a 17-14 lead.
The winning touchdown came with 10:06 remaining, and capped a six-play, 75-yard drive that included a 43-yard Maiava pass on a flea-flicker and a pass interference penalty that put the ball at the Nebraska 6-yard line.
Fans followed Nebraska’s request to wear black for the “Blackout.” Nearly everyone in the crowd of 86,529 seemed to be wearing black. There were black balloons released when the Huskers scored and the AC/DC song “Back in Black” accompanied Nebraska’s Tunnel Walk.
The “atmosphere was electric,” said Rhule.
But not enough to push the Huskers over the winning edge. It was their 29th-consecutive loss to a ranked opponent, dating to 2016.
The loss was a “bitter pill for us to swallow,” Rhule said.
The beat goes on.
