Bowl-bound Huskers add gravy to the holidays

The No. 6 isn’t typically a digit celebrated or aspired to in any way, but on Saturday it felt like a winning lottery ticket in Husker Nation.
Our beloved Big Red is 6-5, bound for a bowl game somewhere soon and looking like a team that’s headed in the right direction. We can all finally exhale, together, feeling like a fan base destined for familiar territory known as December football.
The tension headed into Saturday’s tilt with those pesky Badgers felt uneasily similar to a show we’ve seen before, one that usually ends with disappointment wrapped in a gut punch. Old-timers remember Oklahoma as the dreaded foe that too often had NU’s number, but for a whole new generation of Husker fans Wisconsin has been the other Big Red team that somehow found a way to be the last one standing.
Until Saturday!
Watching Dylan Raiola and Co. find its rhythm again and again on a November Saturday afternoon that mattered was tonic for the soul. That’s what we’ve been expecting since the Colorado game gave us a glimpse of what we hoped was the immediate future, as in now, but instead for all the wrong reasons those hopes kept slip sliding away.
Until Saturday!
On a crisp fall afternoon Husker football looked and felt like it was supposed to for a fan base that has higher standards than it’s earned over the last 20 years. Playmakers were making plays — hello Jacory Barney — and the defense was more than holding its own. Suddenly, we weren’t getting in our own way and for a welcome change of pace it was the other guys who were shooting themselves in the proverbial foot. 
As intense as the feeling of relief was we saw bouncing around Memorial Stadium after the game, can you imagine how different that scene might have been. All the talent we’ve seen glimpses of, the momentum we sensed on opening day and the Year 2 track record of a head coach that seems to be saying and doing all the right things could have gone up in smoke had our guys not answered the bell. That script could well have ended with another gut-wrenching one-score loss at Iowa, which would have sent us into another long, cold winter of Husker discontent.
Instead, the pressure is off and you get the feeling that this team could get it done at Iowa and head into the bonus round of bowl season on a roll. It’s easy to second-guess the coaching staff and wonder why some of the what seemed obvious changes weren’t made sooner than later, but the fact is they were made in time, raising the bar for a program that has nowhere to go but up.
For the first time in too long the Huskers gave us a moment to cherish Saturday, and a genuine sense that there will be more to follow. 
Aurora fans had a little extra skin in the game with Nate Boerkircher carrying on the tradition of former Huskies making their mark in Huskerland. Bork paved his own path as a walk-on who earned his way onto the field, and he’s been a great ambassador for his old hometown. 
Well done, Mr. Boerkircher.
GBR!
KURT JOHNSON can be reached at kjohnson@ hamilton.net