Not just the same old thing

A brief Husker pigskin conversation Friday morning left me puzzled.
“Same old thing,” the person told me. Huh? Still recovering from the previous night’s suds? 
There wasn’t much that was the ‘same old thing’ in regards to Nebraska’s 20-17 opening night win over Cincinnati in Kansas City. 
Sure, 10-plus years of PTSD and scar tissue made the last five minutes of the game a sweat-filled, living room pacing panic attack, but something happened Thursday night that was extremely rare for the Big Red in the last decade and four coaches.
The Huskers won.
Consider Nebraska football’s openers the last eight seasons. The Huskers have only won three. Never mind the well-documented struggles in one-score games. It’s a scenario Nebraska tripped over themselves time after time and then once more for good measure. Not Thursday night. Not in front of Big Ten football fanatic Taylor Swift. 
It wasn’t emphatic by any means. Nebraska didn’t take the ball and finish the game like it could have or fans crave. But, a reversal of fortune did happen.
As Cincinnati drove downfield with an opportunity to win or force OT, Malcolm Hartzog Jr picked up a defensive holding penalty.
At that moment, Mr. “same old thing” was on point. We’ve all seen this movie before and know how it ends. 
However, Hartzog finally, for the sake of my blood pressure, wrote a different ending to the movie.
The very next play, Hartzog snagged an interception in the end zone as the game-sealing play to send Big Red fans back up I-29 with plenty to celebrate.
This is a program who has essentially invented ways to lose. Honestly, ways to lose I haven’t seen anyone else in football pull off.
I get it. If we lose that game, it’s DEFCON-5 and basically a rinse and repeat cycle of what it’s been like as a Husker lifer on the football field. Mr. ‘same old thing’ would be dancing on my grave. 
In many eyes, Nebraska may have won, but not by enough or yeah, a win but they should have gotten beat.
Nebraska football is not yet in a position to gripe about not winning by enough. For right now, winning IS enough. Making the right play in the fourth quarter with the game on the line is progress. 
It’s the first game of the season. Game one is never pretty. There’s things to work on. Yet, everything that went wrong Thursday night is correctable. There’s no glaring problem that can’t be adjusted.
The biggest hat tip to Mike Ekeler and the special teams. When’s the last time Husker fans were satisfied with special teams? The Clinton administration?
Nebraska made two field goals, both extra points, downed three punts inside the 20 and there were no glaring busted coverages. 
How many times in the last 10 years have fans left the stadium dazed, confused, gut wrenched, heartbroken or the all-too-familiar kicked in the groin feeling?
Not Thursday night. Not in Kansas City. Definitely not the ‘same old thing.’
RICHARD RHODEN can be reached at sports@hamilton.net.