1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Are you Furious Nebraska Couldn't FINALLY win a Top 25 Game? OR Proud of the Effort Put Forth in a Hard Fought Game? ... Those Are Your Only Choices: November 3rd, 11:00am

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Are you Furious Nebraska Couldn't FINALLY win a Top 25 Game? OR Proud of the Effort Put Forth in a Hard Fought Game? ... Those Are Your Only ChoicesAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-the-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought you by Canopy Street Market. A Monday boom for you here on one-on-one on 93-7. The ticket DP will be back later this afternoon, but not quite the time for one-on-one. So that means myself, Dick Buckman, And Nick Sainert will carry you through today. Thankfully, there's no shortage of storylines as we come off this Nebraska football weekend,

the blackout weekend, which was incredible. Hats off to the Husker Nation. I didn't think it could be done. I've got egg all over my face this morning. But in a good way, I'm very happy for as much talk as there was about how many of the older crowd was going to be wearing red. You just didn't see a whole lot of red. That was a just a perfect blackout. I don't know if I've ever seen a better one, especially for a team who's primary

Killers and have a better one? No, I went to the Iowa game. They had a blackout. That's not what I was asking. Yeah. Have you ever experienced a blackout? Uh, we, I don't know if I've actually been to a Nebraska blackout.

Okay, that's, no, never mind. Are you talking about like drinking? Yes, yes, never mind. It's been a few years.

Yeah, I'm not a big drinkers. Have you experienced one before? Oh, absolutely. Okay, good. That's the reason I don't like to drink is I wake up, people tell me, you did this,

you did that, you got to clean up your puke over there. Oh, you don't like, okay. I didn't want to, I don't know anything about that. That might not have been. I forgot that you don't drink. Yeah. Bach, this is my problem is that, you know, here we are.

I said it last week about, I can't remember the official or the reason that I said it or brought it up. But I've been working with you for almost six years now and I know like very little about you. Yeah, I try to keep it that way. You know, I talk a lot about it. You know, my life sometimes on air, but. No, I don't. I don't know. Yeah.

What did you do this weekend, Bach? I watched the Oscar game. Anything else? Spend the weekend with the wife and the kids? Oh, absolutely. My wife's birthday is a day. Happy birthday. Happy birthday.

30 years old today. There you go. Said goodbye to her 20s. So that's a big deal. Yeah, I had some lunch with my mom. I don't know. I don't know if there's a whole lot more to break down. Other than that,

we hung out with some friends. But the most important thing. On a scale of 1 to 10, how exciting is your life? Pretty exciting. Okay, good. Yeah. I mean, I went to the, I went to the, the Philippines, went to the other part of the world.

Okay. You're like a few months ago. That's pretty cool. That is true. That is cool. Is that a yearly thing for you? Absolutely not. Okay. I wish, it costs a little bit too. Okay. I fall out of the other side of the world. Does it? Yeah, it does.

Okay. Maybe I'm trying to talk my wife down too. I mean, she's from the Philippines. So I have to tell her, we can't do that every year. That's something that we have to, you know, you have to save up for a little bit. but in any case, yeah, in any case, it was, I thought it was just an incredible showing as far as the blackout for, for Nebraska football fans, something that I think too with the game, and I know we'll get to the game here in a second.

This is going to be a tradition, right? This is going to be a yearly thing. It was that successful. You think they're going to bring this back? Well, I think it's tough too. I think that they'll do a theme every year, which is fine, right? I hope next year they can like graduate and go to a stripe. Like I think red and white, throughout the stadium striped would be really cool. That's going to take a little more coordination, but I think Husker fans are ready for it. It worked out perfectly. Let's not get it twisted. It worked out perfectly because

because it was a night game. And if this game was at 11 a.m., the blackout would not have the same effect. They just wouldn't. No. Yeah, and they've run into that problem before too. But I was, I was like walking around downtown Lincoln, you know, as the pregame show was going on.

And I was like, I was floored. I was started like, I was looking around. I was like, this is a lot of black. I don't see a whole lot of red. And even after all of that, just to see the, you know, the overhead shot of it was just like, we really did this thing.

It really is all black in the stadium. I will also add, shout out to major shout out to the students. Because I think we sometimes forget just how much they can have an impact on the game and on the atmosphere. And while the other, you know,

80, I guess I should be like 76,000 in the stands. How they had a massive impact. But the students getting there as early as they did, filling it up and having it. I mean, every single student was wearing all black. There was not a speck of red in that section. Things like that matter. And things like that are important.

And so, yeah, I think Nebraska, they did a really good job committing to it as well. the fans did a great job. The actual organization, 145 gallons of paint is how much it took to cover the field in black, to do the end, the end zones, the sidelines where it says Tom Osborne field,

145 gallons. Wow. Of paint, which is kind of crazy to think about. Commitment to the bit, black balloons. I mean, everything.

It was really, really cool. I just wish they could have won. Yeah, we'll see too. And I hope they lean into, you know, the black shirt side of it,

too. there's something on the field goal post, but for the most part, it was, it was just kind of the blackout. I'd like to see that. But we'll see if they do that. One thing that could prevent them from doing that is just their performance in alternate uniform games. And the fact they lost this game, of course, 21 to 17. It's interesting. Jake Sorensen, very mad, tweeted about it, talked about it this morning. You, I heard, very frustrated on the, on the, you know, on the drive. You're not apologetic whatsoever. No. About this. I thought it was a pretty good Yeah, I thought Nebraska performed pretty well.

This is not a game over having, you know, covered the team, you know, since 2013, but specifically the last nine years. This is not a place in the program where I'm incredibly frustrated, disappointed one way or the other. They could have won the game, right? But you got to beat up offensive line coming into it. It gets further beat up. Your quarterback, if you tell me before the game or before the season, you don't have Dillon, or Iola, that significantly changes my expectation.

So, you know, to have a lead at halftime, to regain that lead in the fourth quarter, to have a chance to score with the final drive, absolutely. There's frustration that they didn't, that wasn't, the operation wasn't smooth once T.J. Lateef went out there, the timeouts. I mean, there's things in every game to criticize, right? So I'm not saying it's without criticism, but even the way they lost, given your best player of the ball, a chance to continue the drive. And it just, you know, he slipped.

It didn't work out. But my philosophy would always be, win and lose with your best. players. They had, you know, they even lost that way. So to me, I, I thought it was a great performing. You look at the past defense. This was definitely showing that that's not a joke. This is more than a one total offense. That's a problem, right? I'm starting with, start with the positives here. But I mean, the defense altogether thought put more pressure on Jaden Miava than we had seen. I think I saw this. That was just like the least amount of passing yards that a Lincoln Riley offense has had. I mean, that's that's pretty impressive, even going back

to his days at Oklahoma, not just at USC. The offensive line has been better at past protection. As much as we criticize them, they've got a thousand yard back now in Emmett Johnson. So they must be doing something right here and there. I just, I feel like you combine all that with the fact that this is, yes, you want the year three jump, right? But this is a team with a new offensive coordinator, a new defensive coordinator, new special teams coordinator, six and three.

Yeah, you came up short in a few games. Now, I would argue and be frustrated until the end, as I was after the Minnesota game. This one I would place in a different category, right? You don't want to take moral victories, but this, I didn't, I don't feel like this is something that I was unexpected. And it could have gone significantly worse considering the situation, again, of losing your quarterback and in the beat up offensive line. So I just thought it was a pretty good effort put forward by Nebraska this weekend.

I was I was not frustrated with the effort. I will say this. A lot of people probably already know where I stand on this. I think that ultimately when you look at Nebraska, there were a lot of the same issues that have plagued them this season that plagued them again. And I, it's more so of like for me,

It wasn't a situation, the fact that they lost the game. It wasn't even like some of the decisions on play calling that they made. It was a lot of like mentality for me. I didn't see adjustments made defensively, especially. Adjustments made defensively. USC did. USC made adjustments. And you could see it because not only when T.J. Lateef got into the game,

but even before that, USC was starting to really send the house because they felt like they could guard Nebraska's receivers one-on-one. This is why that's the biggest area, I think, for me, that I'm a little more concerned about. It goes back to identifying talent for me. Nebraska went out to the portal and they brought in Daneke, they bring in Isaiah Hunter, They brought, obviously brought in other guys.

Cortez Mills is a guy that has had a little bit of playing time. Quinn Clark was out there in spurts on Saturday against USC. And Nebraska offensively, and I know I'm jumping sides of the ball, Nebraska offensively was not able to get the ball in the hands of their playmakers. And the big play for me is obviously the fourth and one buck. And you just said it, and I 100% agree with you. Put the hands, if you're going to lose or if you're going to win, win with the ball in the hands of your best players. And in the moments of that fourth and one, in that moment of the fourth and one, your best player on the field was Emmett Johnson.

And the play that they were going to call on that fourth and one was not for Emmett Johnson. And it's that type of thing to where I said it on the show and I said it on the show and I'll repeat it till I'm blue in the face. This is the fourth and one where they ended up with the field goal, where they called the time out, attempted the field goal, missed the goal. But let me, I mean, go ahead. Go ahead. That's fine.

Later in the game. Yeah. Last play for Nebraska offense. Yeah. Fourth and when they do give him is Johnson the ball and it doesn't work out. Well, he trips over. He and he and he and he and he would have. It would have been.

Well, it was blocked well. It was right. Right. Right. Well, I'm just saying sometimes even if you do the call that you want. And that's what I'm saying might not work out. But this is my point of I don't hate the decision to kick a field goal. I also don't hate the decision to go for it on fourth.

I hate the change. I hate the fact that you called a time out and you had like go with a second time out of the drive. A second time out of the drive and the second straight play. Go with your gut and do what you just wanted to do. And like I said it that if anybody on that play deserves to be pissed, it's Emmett. Emmett's playing at an all big 10 level right now, a potential all American level in the country. And you're searching for guys to have. have that mentality of give me the rock, get the bleep out of my way, let me go to work.

And I don't care who's in the way. And if Emmett Johnson wouldn't have, if Emmett Johnson wouldn't have gotten the first down, I would still sit here and go, no, you know what? You were confident in that. That's why I didn't hate the decision earlier in the year against Michigan to go for it. You're confident in that spot? Go with your gut. Now you have to understand the difference in like game flow and if it met, like, yes, of course

you have to adjust to those things and those outside factors. But those two timeouts were incredibly valuable, and they ended up hurting Nebraska down the stretch when they could have used them, especially with a freshman quarterback in. I was really disappointed in all week, all season, we've heard the physicality that Nebraska wants to play with. And in the moments, sometimes in games, game-defining moments,

you have an opportunity to assert physicality, and you don't. And you kind of, you kind of, once again, I'm not, I'm not saying cower away, but I'm saying you just kind of go away from it. But at some point, do you have to also recognize where your strengths are?

I mean, you want physicality, yes. Was the strength at that time of the game not running the ball? I mean, it might have been to push up front. But is Nebraska team, and it's all, the easiest thing to say, and you hear it from,

especially former players, I'm just going to throw them in there, but anybody is, it's one yard. You gotta want it more. You gotta, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. But you know what? That's the defense, it's pretty difficult to get those. You were averaging 5.6 yards per carry at that time.

You could, there's, there's, for me, I don't know how, and this is, this is not me like saying, like, I don't know how Matt Ruhl could do this. It's not that deep. It's more so for me, it's just like, I'm curious, interested, to see how or what they say to defend the decision. And if their gut is to go for it because you have confidence in your kicker, okay, good, go ahead.

It was the change. It was the change. Nebraska rushes their offense on the field. Have to call the time out, because whether it is because Lateef wasn't set up correctly and Heinrich had a motioned him out, I don't know what it is. The fact that it happened is the problem. and if it's an execution piece, I don't know, but I'm also not paid to know.

I'm also not paid to make sure that in those situations, whether it's Dylan out there or whether it's Lateef, whether it's Emmett or whether it's Mackay Nelson, whether it's Elijah Pritchard or Turner Corcoran to get those guys ready. I told AD this before. You have 40 weeks, 40 of the 52 weeks of a calendar year. Now, sure, give or take, some of those, you can't practice NCAA rules. I get that, right? so maybe that's being a little more overdramatic than necessary.

But man, like, it, go with your gut. And in your moment, the gut is telling you that, excuse me, Nebraska could get one yard. I think that entire fan base in that stadium would agree with you because you had been running it really well. And the statistics showed that. But if you want to sit there and say, well, the analytics,

the data that we had from that the first couple of quarters didn't suggest that we should go for it. False. Because Emma Johnson was running at a pretty good clip to that point. Nebraska's offensive line was getting some really good push in the trenches. They had a good first half. The second half, when that, when that play had arrived by then, they've had two possessions.

Yep. One of them was three plays for seven yards. Yes. The next one was four plays, the fumble that Dylan got hurt on. Yeah. And then this field goal came after a six-play, the field goal of temp came after a six-play 20-yard drive. So they were somewhat disjointed.

And this is not, this is not totally covering for them because part of the problem in this game was them not coming out and looking, like you said, adjustments are prepared after halftime. The offense at that time in my mind, again, you can look at total, sure, stats maybe for that game, might tell a different story. But where they were in the third quarter,

I love the idea for the field goal. I don't love burning two timeouts. That's where I'm extremely critical of that, of that possession. but you're up one possession on a top 25 team with a chance to take it to two possessions. Yeah. So to me, especially in a game that it finishes 2117,

I love the field goal there. I love the idea to go for the field goal. The problem is, again, the two timeouts that you burn getting to that point. Once again, I get from the game management standpoint, I know we have a phone call from James here in a second. My thing is, once again,

I don't hate the field goal. I don't hate the decision to go for it. I just hate the fact that you changed what your initial goal. was telling you. That's my problem. Well, the other thing, too, is, I mean, and they've tried that Heinrich Harbour stuff all year. That's gone.

That's gone nowhere. I have my own thoughts that maybe aren't made for the radio, the airwaves, and that's fine. Keep the ball in the hands of your best playmakers. Proven playmakers. That's what I have to say. All right, let's send to James here on the call here. James, how's it going? Hey, guys. How are you? Oh, not too bad. I'm taking the call.

It's dandy. It sounds like it. So I actually want to go a little bit higher up, so 30,000 feet. My problem with the whole scenario that you're breaking down, Nick, is Matt Ruhle in the moment lost his cool. And if we remember correctly, you guys, I haven't heard you talk about this. So apologies, if you did, I just got back in the car. right before this sequence was the personal foul that wasn't called a personal foul, right? Our linemen played to the whistle.

Their linemen turned around, shoved the offensive linemen. Okay, they didn't throw the flag. And for really the first time, I think that I've seen it happen in three years, Matt Ruhle lost is cool. And he was then... I don't think he was, I think he was, he was dysregulated. Like, let's call it what it was. And so in that moment, like, you know, I'm sure on the headset, Dana is like, what do you want?

That's the head coach's job. What do you want here? You want to try to score or get the first down? That's what offensive coordinators do. And rules like, okay, I don't care. Play for three. And so he's not able to engage in that moment. He's disregulated.

losing is cool. And that was the problem I had. For me, it goes beyond field goal or not. It was, he was disengaged from his team and he had to call a timeout. And you saw the TV. He's continuing to argue, okay, that's fine. But they're not going to, they're not going to throw a flag during a timeout. And so if he's going to do that, if he's going to ride the refs, which is his prerogative as a head coach,

he needs to turn things over and just say, hey, Dana, do what you need to do here. I'm going to rag on this ref that's on the sideline by the sticks. And then they go on with their lives and the call. And that didn't happen. And so then they're discombobulated. And that's what led to what you guys are talking about. So that was my bigger issue.

Was that he lost his cool and he wasn't able to coach his team in the moment. I just haven't seen that from him. So anyway, I'll hang up. Thanks for taking my call. Thanks, James. Yeah, that was a great call. Go ahead, Bach. I'll let you take that first. Yeah, I think that's an incredible point that we didn't mention yet because we mentioned there's two timeouts on the drive. That was one, again, the further, I guess illustrating that Nebraska was a little bit discombobulated at the time. And that was an awful timeout.

I mean, again, no matter. That's really where the best question probably is there because you understand the reasoning behind the second timeout. It's bad. It's not good reasoning, but you understand why they did it. The first time out, to his point, what are you going to argue a personal foul call? I thought that it was a lousy. I didn't mind the no-call. I didn't either.

I thought that Turner Corcoran, frankly, he kind of forced the, played through the echo of the whistle, sure, but I thought that he kind of just kind of pushed the USC guy, didn't need to on top of the pile. Was it a bad retaliation by USC? Sure, right? Was it a flop by Turner Corcoran?

Yeah, probably. Yeah, it looked like it. Right? And so I just think like we clamor to the refs like of like, hey, keep the flag in your pocket. Like don't, don't infiltrate the game more than you need to. And in that moment, I didn't think that they needed to throw a flag there for that. I will say this, though. I was disappointed.

If we haven't gotten an official answer on that, if you call a timeout simply just to yell at the refs, man i don't know um there's some other things there but then i think genuinely there was a moment to where they were so as james said focused on that there um that they saw that the play clock was going down and they go oh no we got to call a time out then he'd call the fourth and one you go out there with heinrich harberg when you're running back is doing well and uh you have to call a time out again. And part of it could have been because T.J. Lateef was lined up. You know how you don't like if your answer to

or if the reason why you had to call the second time out was because T.J. Lateef was not lined up in the right spot. Play clock was winding down. You know how you avoid that? Stop doing the cute unnecessary formation line up and go run it down their throats like you've done all game. Like this is, that's my point.

Of like, you can minimize the the chance for mistakes by just doing the simple things. And for a staff and a program that preaches time and time again, that they need to be disciplined and they need to be doing the simple things well. They need to play good football first before they can worry about everything else. In that moment, when you just needed to line up, you didn't really do that. You went against everything you've ever said. And that's what bothered me the most.

That's what bothered me the most. Yeah, can you blame T.J. Lateef for not being. lined up and not knowing the play, sure. But also, understand that it's a true freshman in a game against USC. And if he's not lined up correctly, you know where he never lines up incorrectly at is the position he plays at quarterback. Lainty J. Lateef out in the perimeter does nothing. You're not throwing him the ball.

Everybody on the field knows you're not throwing him the ball. I don't know. This is what you did, Bach. Look at, we got another phone call from Dave. And again, I do think it would be different if that Harburg package had had any Yeah. At this point, I just, I don't know if, are they trying to make Hyner Carberg to Taysam Hill?

Like, is that what they're trying to do? Like, I, that's very lousy and very lazy, low-hanging fruit comparison. I get that. I don't know. Like, you have a team that runs the ball conventionally well. I'm getting told to calm down by old dad. Yeah, that's fine. That's what happened.

Let's get to Dave here on the phone line. Dave, how's it going? Okay. Good to hear from you. What are your thoughts today? Hey, you've been doing a really good job at 93.7 since you start. I just, I just wanted to call and say that too. Thank you, Dave.

You know, you know that timeout reminds me of last year at UCLA when didn't rule call two timeouts and then he decided to month the ball? Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. But look, you've averaged 17 points a game for last three games. That's not going to win you any games. in college football.

That's what it gets down. He scored 6, 28, and 17. That's just ridiculous. No, I think that guy before the caller, I think he made a good point. There was miscommunication on the sidelines between the coaches. I don't think they knew what they wanted to do.

But, yeah, that's ridiculous. You got a guy who has 1,000 yards, and it's 4 to 1, and you can't get it. I mean, well, it'll probably, You know, you don't get it, but, you know, at least try 52 yards in a, in a slight breeze for a field goal. That's really, really sharp odds. But anyway, thanks taking my call, and you guys do a great job. Thank you.

Thank you, Dave. Thanks for the call. Yeah. I mean, again, I like the field goal attempt because there hasn't got three guys on the, I've been so fast about the field goal kicking because they brought tuning in-in-in-in-in. They already had guys that could hit 50-yarders, a little bit inconsistent, right? Yeah. But the length is not, I mean, they got three guys that can hit it, whether they,

they would or not as interesting. I would say two. Whole, hole and cananan. Well, I've always hit a 55 yard is what I'm saying. They've had the, they've had the leg before. Guys that are ready to play. Yeah. Canaanin and all.

Yeah. But either way. Yeah. I'm just, I'm just being annoying here. Yeah. But I just, I don't know. Yeah. There's, there's so many layers to the onion buck.

Like, there's so many things that you can peel back and go. Like, my, my big thing of this and Matt Rule is just, starting to talk here in the next couple minutes. So we'll have stuff from that. But like my big thing just over and over is like what, what was it yesterday or excuse me, Saturday that like kept Nebraska away from winning? And maybe we can talk about this in the next segment because I asked the question on my show, more NIL money?

Does that just generate a win? and I just I'm very passionate in that I don't think it does. Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about that. What was the biggest factor for Nebraska not winning that game? We can do that coming up next year on one-on-one on 93-7 the ticket. Download our app by searching 93.7, the ticket in your app store. You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 937 the ticket and the ticketfm.com.