Nebraska thoughts: Coaching search hangs over familiar drama in home finale

LINCOLN, Neb. — Torment. That’s all this is.

Imagine enduring wind-chill temperatures in the teens to watch a three-win football team build an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter against an opponent it hasn’t beaten in a decade. An uncommon level of dedication is required to support Nebraska in these dark days, but some 40,000 brave souls hung in there Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

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The Huskers got seemingly every dose of good fortune for 55 minutes of clock time against Wisconsin, the last when Graham Mertz’s throw to Keontez Lewis for a first down into Nebraska territory was overturned, forcing a punt by the still-trailing Badgers.

The final five minutes amounted to nothing more than the latest chapter of Nebraska’s nightmare — a three-and-out offensive series, then a Wisconsin drive from the 50 for the winning touchdown on Mertz’s 1-yard sneak with 35 seconds to play.

The Badgers won 15-14, their ninth straight victory in this series. Wisconsin clinched bowl eligibility for interim coach Jim Leonhard. His Nebraska counterpart, Mickey Joseph, lost a fifth consecutive game. The Huskers are 3-8.

“This one hurts,” Joseph said.

• Despite the dramatics on display, I couldn’t escape conversation Saturday about the Nebraska coaching search. It dwarfs all other topics. I heard about it on the field before kickoff among family members of visiting recruits, in an elevator from the press box and while standing in a concourse-level line.

Even the kids selling Valentino’s Pizza wanted to get eyes on Trev Alberts. What’s the athletic director doing? To whom is he talking? What games is he watching on an important Saturday in college football?

As of four days before Wisconsin again ripped Huskers’ hearts from their chests, former Carolina Panthers coach Matt Rhule looked like a leader in the race to take over as the Nebraska coach as soon as next week. But little emerged late in the week about progress on that front.

• Ten weeks after the search began, maybe we’re all reading too much into every potential strategic move. Who was on the other end of that phone call, though, with Ron Brown, Nebraska’s senior offensive analyst and a longtime coach as he stood in the back of the room during Joseph’s postgame news conference?

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Could it have been Rhule, a fellow New York native who’s been active in the FCA community like Brown? Nah. But the absence of real information in this search has turned it into a bit of a circus, at least outwardly.

• Who is a real candidate? Well, Lance Leipold is. The Kansas coach got drubbed at home Saturday by Texas, 55-14. Still, Leipold, decked out in red on the Jayhawks’ sideline, gained momentum late in the week. To enter the regular-season finale at Kansas State next Saturday night, he’s got KU locked into a bowl game for the first time since 2008.

Perhaps Leipold will face a decision in the days ahead: Sign a contract extension at Kansas, where a six-win season like this one will be viewed as a success for as long as he chooses to coach, or take a leap on a place like Nebraska, which has won six games total in the past two seasons and strives to zoom well past the level of KU in a short time.

• An old Leipold associate could have made the trip to Lawrence with the Longhorns: Shawn Eichorst. The former Nebraska athletic director, who hired Mike Riley as the Huskers’ football coach and was fired in 2017, works at Texas as the senior associate AD for internal affairs.

Leipold and Eichorst share Wisconsin roots. They both played at Wisconsin-Whitewater. Leipold assisted on the Whitewater staff when Eichorst played, and Eichorst served as AD at the school for a four-year stretch before Leipold coached the Warhawks to six Division III championships in eight seasons.

If they connected during the Texas visit, the discussion must have been compelling.

• On the subject of Leipold, what if the Wisconsin win Saturday in Lincoln actually made the path to hiring him a bit easier for Alberts? Leonhard, 40, is widely seen as likely to move into the role of permanent head coach for the Badgers. Losing at Nebraska, then losing big in the regular-season finale against Minnesota, remained about the only way to hurt Leonhard’s chances.

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If Wisconsin went on the hunt, Leipold would be a candidate. He served as a graduate assistant under Barry Alvarez in Madison from 1991 to 1993.

• The clandestine nature of this Nebraska search has made it impossible not to anticipate a surprise. While Rhule and Leipold remain known as candidates at some point, others surely exist — including coaches who’ve been overlooked publicly as serious targets.

The likelihood that Alberts makes a hire that catches us off guard rates just as high, in my view, as a move that we expect.

• Nebraska continues to recruit at a fervent pace, even without clarity in the program leadership beyond next week. The freezing cold sideline was filled again Saturday with prospects. Among the group was 2024 wide receiver Isaiah McMorris of Bellevue West, who counts offers from Nebraska, Penn State and others.

Another familiar face mixed with the recruits: Grant Wistrom, the 1997 Lombardi Award winner, three-time Nebraska national champion and Super Bowl champion. Wistrom coaches at Springfield (Mo.) Glendale, and he visited his alma mater with Glendale defensive lineman Kellen Lindstrom.

Grant’s daughter, Charlie Wistrom, was not on the trip. Charlie is a Division I prospect in soccer, her dad said, and a friend of Lindstrom. She kicked for the Glendale football team this fall as a sophomore. Despite her legendary last name, college football is not in her plans.

• Nebraska announced attendance at 86,068, its 389th consecutive sellout. That figure reflects tickets sold, not people in the seats. At kickoff, perhaps 75 percent of the stadium was full. By the fourth quarter, largely because of the cold, about half of the seats appeared occupied.

That the Huskers made it through this season with the sellout streak intact, even with the help of donors to buy unsold tickets, is a testament to the loyalty of fans whose team has lost 49 of its past 73 games.

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• Quarterback Casey Thompson returned Saturday after a two-game absence because of an arm injury suffered late in the first half against Illinois on Oct. 29. Thompson threw a pair of touchdowns to Trey Palmer and rushed for 33 yards on 11 carries. He hit 12 of 20 passes for 106 yards.

Before the game, Thompson walked in senior day festivities. He said he had not decided if he would return to Nebraska as a sixth-year senior in 2023.

“If I happen to be back,” he said, “I’ll walk again next year.”

Thompson, 24, earned an undergraduate degree last year at Texas. He’s set to receive a master’s degree from Nebraska next month.

• Behind all the disappointment of losing and drama of the coaching search stand people with a lot at stake.

Nebraska safety Marques Buford went down with a leg injury in pass defense during Wisconsin’s opening offensive possession. He was carted off the field, signaling encouragement to teammates while grimacing in pain.

“It looked ugly,” Joseph said of the report he received.

After the game, Nebraska inside linebackers coach Barrett Ruud sat on a couch outside the locker room with his young sons, Brooks and Hudson. Father and sons ate Chick-fil-A as they watched Rutgers and Penn State on TV.

Ruud grew up in Lincoln. He’s the son, nephew and grandson of former Huskers and ranks as the leading tackler in school history. His youngest pupil, true freshman Ernest Hausmann, recorded a game-high 12 stops Saturday and oozes potential.

But Ruud may not get to coach him much longer. Saturday was perhaps his final home game on staff at Nebraska.

Of Hausmann and fellow true freshman cornerback Malcolm Hartzog, whose third interception of the season led Saturday to a second-quarter Nebraska touchdown, Joseph said he hoped to sit down with them soon and discuss their futures.

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The coach said he thought both defenders would return. But you never know, of course, with players and coaches, in this era of college football.

(Top photo of Nebraska’s Malcolm Hartzog and Wisconsin’s Braelon Allen: Dylan Widger / USA Today)

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