Winning is not easy in college football, but it's not as difficult as Nebraska makes it look.
At a program that won nine games annually from 1969 to 2001, the 6-win mark now looks as unobtainable as bear crawling to the top of Mount Everest. Barefoot. And backward.
In the latest example of snatching defeat from the clutches of victory, Nebraska on Friday managed to lose 13-10 to No. 17 Iowa -- in regulation -- in which it:
-- forced four consecutive three-and-outs, and seven consecutive stops, over the course of the second half
-- limited the opposing quarterback to 11-of-28 passing for 94 yards
-- had a 1st-and-10 at the opponent 25-yard line in a tie game with under eight minutes to play
-- had a 1st-and-10 at its own 45 with 31 seconds to play
"To lose in that fashion," Matt Rhule said after the game, "wouldn't wish that on anybody."
And while it's true Iowa struggled to win a game in which it limited to Nebraska to 75 rushing yards, forced two turnovers and surrendered three points in the second half, the Hawkeyes make a habit of winning ugly. At 10-2, Iowa has won by scores of 20-14, 15-6, 10-7, 15-13 and 13-10.
Nebraska, meanwhile, had four shots at their elusive sixth victory after starting 5-3. The Huskers closed the year (assuming they don't back-door into a bowl game) losing 20-17, 13-10, 24-17 in overtime and 13-10.
Those losses extend Nebraska's bowl drought to seven seasons, the longest streak in Power 5. After Texas State formally qualifies for a bowl game next month, only UMass and ULM will have longer bowl-less streaks that the Huskers, a program that played in an NCAA-record 35 straight bowl games from 1969 to 2003.
Since 2017, under three separate head coaches Nebraska is 28-52 overall and 11-32 in 1-score games. Nowhere is Nebraska's culture of losing more evident than against Iowa; the Huskers are 1-8 against the Hawkeyes since 2015, with six losses (and, improbably, their only win) coming by eight points or fewer.
One way to avoid losing so many 1-score games is to play fewer of them, and to do that Nebraska will have to improve across the board on offense. Big Red entered the weekend 105th in yards per play, 98th in plays of 20-plus yards, 121st in scoring, and third-to-last in passing efficiency. Nebraska played three quarterbacks this season -- none threw more touchdowns than interceptions, and collectively they tossed 10 touchdowns to 16 picks.
The 16th and final interception might've been the worst; Chubba Purdy somehow didn't see Iowa linebacker Ethan Hurkett standing directly in front of him.
Nebraska compounds its inability to separate from opponents with a consistent aversion to success. Things like committing a late hit out of bounds while trying to play field position or committing a holding penalty on a potential game-winning interception, both of which Nebraska did on Friday.
Over the past seven seasons, Nebraska easily leads the country in critical mistakes. This year's Huskers outfit entered Friday second-to-last in turnover margin, and lost the turnover battle 3-1 against Iowa. It's not a coincidence that Nebraska hasn't finished with a positive turnover margin since 2016, its last winning season. Six of the past seven Husker teams were in the negative.
"We have a lot to continue to work on," Rhule said.
Rooting out a culture of losing won't be easy. My advice, not that Rhule asked for it: make everything competitive. Make winter conditioning, nutrition, treatment, and academics competitive. Elements that already are competitive need to become even more so. Heck, make it a competition to see who can come up with the most new competitions.
Nebraska loses so many close games because team after team of Nebraska players are conditioned to losing close games. At some point on Friday, Husker players realized they were going to lose no matter what, Hawkeye players realized they were going to win no matter what, and both sides were correct.
The good news here is Rhule has a documented track record of exterminating losing cultures. If anything, Nebraska is ahead of schedule compared to his previous jobs. At Temple, Rhule went from 2-10, to 6-6, to 10-4. At Baylor, he went from 1-11, to 7-6, to 11-3.
But that doesn't make witnessing a 5-3 start wilt into a 5-7 finish any easier to stomach for a loyal but weary Nebraska fan base.
"What to the outside world looks like, 'Man...' to me looks like an unbelievable job by a lot of people to get everything this close and to battle like this. That's why I'm so proud of these guys, they battle and they fight. I think that's the key moving forward."