By Todd Brommelkamp/1600 ESPN
Jay Higgins unloads on Nebraska after Iowa’s 13-10 win Nov. 29, 2024.
IOWA CITY – There is a odor of arrogance that emanates from everyone associated with the Nebraska football program, from its head coach to the media who cover it and a good majority of fans.
Take, for instance, this gem from former Athletics Director Shawn Eichorst after the 2014 season when he canned Bo Pelini following a 9-3 campaign.
“In the final analysis,” he said, “I had to evaluate where Iowa was.”
He followed a little while later with this comment.
“The people of Nebraska deserve not only high standards and expectations,” Eichorst said, “but they deserve seeing our people and our teams reach them.”
To quote Unforgiven, “deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
Ironically, Pelini’s last game was a 37-34 victory over Iowa in overtime.
Nebraska has won more than six total games just once since that fateful November. In the years that have followed, the Hawkeyes have emerged victorious in the Heroes Game all but once. Friday’s 13-10 nail-biter was its second in a row over the Huskers since falling to Nebraska inside Kinnick Stadium two seasons ago.
The Huskers are further from their glory days of the 1970s and 80s than the bus mileage they racked up heading home from Iowa City to Lincoln. Their most recent loss was just another painful reminder of that, and many of Iowa’s players took particular delight in having played a part in adding to the state’s collective misery.
Little did folks in Kearney and Scottsbluff know the Huskers finished their season 6-6 before Matt Rhule’s team had even won the coin toss.
It started, according to senior Iowa linebacker Jay Higgins, during warmups when Rhule made it a point to walk through Iowa’s area of the field. That breach of decorum did not go unnoticed, and was only amplified when the Huskers’ captains refused to shake hands with Iowa’s captains at midfield before kickoff.
“The moment they didn’t shake our hands,” he said. “I knew we won.”
According to Higgins, who found himself near Rhule along the Nebraska sideline during the course of play, he asked the former Carolina Panthers head coach about the team’s pregame behavior.
“Who are you?” Rhule reportedly responded to the man who entered Friday’s game second in the Big Ten in tackles and was a Sporting News preseason all-American.
When the Huskers led 10-0 at the half, Higgins surmised Nebraska felt it had the Hawks right where it wanted them.
“I mean, how good did they feel at halftime?,” Higgins asked sarcastically. “Didn’t shake our hands, up 10. I mean, they were probably in that locker room going crazy.”
It took until the end of the third quarter, but things began to slowly turn in Iowa’s favor.
First kicker Drew Stevens put Iowa on the scoreboard with a 20-yard field goal after a Nebraska turnover gave Iowa its best field position of the night.
Then Kaleb Johnson, bottled up most of the game by a solid Nebraska run defense, caught a short pass from Jackson Stratton and broke loose for a 72-yard touchdown.
“Green grass,” he said when asked what he saw on the fateful play, though Iowa fans would be more interested in Johnson saying moments later he has no timeline on making a decision about leaving school early for the NFL.
Stevens finished the Huskers off with a 53-yard field goal as time expired, providing redemption for last season’s game when struggles led him to being benched by head coach Kirk Ferentz.
What a difference a year makes, eh?
“We had all the confidence in him,” Ferentz said.
Iowa would not have been in the position to walk-off the Kinnick Stadium turf winners in regulation had it not been for a fumble recovery by Max Llewellyn with 20 seconds remaining in the game. Confusion ruled as the game clock ran down to zero and officials could be heard on a hot microphone questioning one another in the moment. After a review, it was deemed Huskers QB Dylan Raiola had, indeed, lost the ball.
It was the kind of moment that has haunted the Huskers over the last decades as they’ve careened from Pelini to Mike Riley then Scott Frost and now Rhule in search of stability and success.
“I can’t imagine being some of those seniors, and then just happening like this again against Iowa, especially the way we played,” a disappointed Rhule said.
Does that sound a little condescending?
Against Iowa.
Immediately after the game ended, Higgins made a bee line not for the Heroes Trophy but for Rhule. He extended his hand and made sure the coach shook it.
“I told him good game,” Higgins said. “Any questions?”
There will likely be plenty of them in Lincoln, as there should be.
Todd Brommelkamp is the host of “The Todd Brommelkamp Show” and can be heard weekday mornings on 1600ESPN from 6:30 to 9 a.m.
