Nebraska football had a handful of losses last Saturday night. The Huskers lost their starting quarterback, college football playoff hopes and obviously their actual matchup with No. 23 USC.
The 21-17 fall to the Trojans marks the program’s 10th one-score loss under head coach Matt Rhule as well as the 29th consecutive loss to a ranked opponent. Of Nebraska’s three losses this season, two of them are to ranked opponents at home.
Unlike a handful of other losses from the past, there’s not a whole lot of positives for the Husker faithful to take away from this one. The loss wasn’t a pretty one as Nebraska led at halftime and the blackshirts didn’t allow USC to reach the end zone until late in the third quarter.
However, the beginning of the game drew national attention because of the atmosphere in Memorial Stadium. For the first time in program history, Husker football successfully orchestrated a stadium-wide blackout. From black rally towels to painting the end zones and midfield logo on the field, the blackout was enforced to the fullest extent possible.
“A night game in Lincoln was pretty awesome too,” offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen said on Tuesday. “That’s as good as any atmosphere in college football, period.”
Fans, especially those in the student section, made sure to show up well before the 6:30 p.m. kickoff. The silver bleachers that usually reflect shiny rays of the sun turned into a sea of black loud enough to stun USC’s offense during their first two drives of the game. The Trojans didn’t pick up a first down on either of those possessions, and the Husker offense was able to find a seven-point lead very soon after. Some fans are convinced they had something to do with it.
“The crowd was absolutely a huge factor for that,” freshman sports media and communications major Brody Nelson said. “The real loss of that game was not going for it on fourth and one in the fourth quarter, and I feel like that’s when the crowd kind of lost its mojo a little bit. You can kind of sense it wasn’t as loud because everyone in that scene is like, ‘It’s really happening again, isn’t it?’
“Up until that point in the game, though, it was the rowdiest I’ve ever seen Memorial.”
Nelson runs a Huskers athletic fan account on Instagram. Like many other fan accounts, as well as the official social media accounts for Nebraska football, he opted to post only black and white graphics leading up to the game. He feels that the excitement and overall camaraderie surrounding this game rival the anticipation of other primetime matchups the Huskers have had in the past.
“I was at the Colorado game last year and have been going to games my whole life,” Nelson said. “That Colorado game was the loudest I’ve ever heard the place, but I think the blackout topped it. It worked to perfection.”
While there are many fans out there, like Nelson, who have experienced Memorial Stadium at night or during an anticipated game, this was the first one like that for some.
“This year was the first year where I’ve really been able to go to Husker Games regularly,” freshman sports media and communications major Colton Alder said. “The environment for the game on Saturday was so much better than the environment that I saw in all the other games I’ve gone to this year. It was absolutely electric. I also loved the fact that everyone actually showed up in black, that nobody was being a holdout.”
The marching band wearing black uniforms and waving black flags, as well as black balloons being released after Nebraska’s first score of the game, were also a few finishing touches to go along with the game’s theme.
“I thought the band wearing black uniforms was great,” freshman mechanical engineering major Simon Lim said. “I’d say the black balloons did not make a lot of sense to me as you couldn’t really see them when they went up in the air, but everyone wearing black was well executed, and I didn’t see a whole lot of red.”
Despite the one-score loss, many fans are hopeful that the blackout can one day be an annual tradition.
“I hope some things go right for us in the future, and that we can win these one-score games,” Nelson said. “If we can do that, then the blackout will work every single year. We’ll always continue to be louder and louder.”