Destiny? This one wasn't meant to be

By Brian Rosenthal / Huskers.com

MADISON, Wisc. – Kieron Williams took a knee behind the Nebraska bench, closed his eyes and bowed his head.

Jordan Ober practiced snaps to holder Zack Darlington, while kicker Drew Brown slowly walked with his helmet in hand.

Surely Brown, who’d tied the game with his 35-yard field goal with 5:53 remaining in regulation, would get another chance to boot a simple extra point to lift the Huskers to victory.

Fate would have this game end this way, right?

“When they missed the extra point in overtime, I thought, ‘OK,’ ” Nebraska coach Mike Riley said.

“But it was not to be.”

Nebraska never gained a first down on four plays in overtime, and No. 11 Wisconsin, despite a missed field goal late in regulation and the missed extra point after its overtime touchdown, defeated No. 7 Nebraska 23-17 before a boisterous Camp Randall Stadium crowd of 80,833 fans on Saturday night.

“I will say everything I know about our team is confirmed,” said Riley, whose previously undefeated Huskers had been judged on the national stage, and by some locals, too, as one not worthy of their ranking.

“Once again, we really kept our poise when we were down in the fourth quarter,” Riley said. “That did not deter us from getting back into it. We didn’t get the final result that we had been getting but we sure got to the point where we could have.”

The game marked Nebraska’s return to the state where it lost friend, teammate and leader, punter Sam Foltz, who died in an automobile accident in Wisconsin in July.

Before the game, Wisconsin kicker Rafael Gaglianone, sidelined for the remainder of the season with a back injury, joined Brown and fellow Husker kicker Spencer Lindsay in bringing the No. 27 jersey of Foltz to the Nebraska sideline.

In honor of Foltz, Gaglianone, a junior, switched his jersey number to 27 this season. He and Brown had attended the same kicking camp the night of the accident that claimed the life of Foltz and former Michigan State punter Mike Sadler.

It looked for all the world like Nebraska may also honor Foltz with a victory through, of all things, the kicking game.

After Brown’s game-tying field goal, the Blackshirts forced a punt and gave the Huskers one final possession in regulation with 1:43 remaining.

Anybody with any knowledge of the Foltz story surely had the same thing in mind.

Yet Nebraska, which started at its 28-yard line, never advanced further than its 49 in the final seconds of regulation, and punted.

Still, the legacy of Foltz remained. The coin that Big Ten teams use this season at the game’s beginning, and again in overtime, have an image of Foltz on one side and Sadler on the other.

Nebraska, of course, called Foltz on the overtime coin flip, and won. It chose to defend Wisconsin, which churned out a few big rushes, including an 11-yard touchdown by Dare Ogunbowale.

The missed extra point gave Nebraska life. Yet the Huskers, who’d rallied from a 17-7 deficit, gained a mere 2 yards in overtime.

Yes, senior receiver Jordan Westerkamp was body checked by T.J. Watt on a third-down passing attempt that didn’t elicit a flag.

“It’s a tough call to make,” Westerkamp said. “It really doesn’t matter if I think it was (interference) or not. It’s football, and sometimes they get called, and sometimes they don’t. There were some things at the end we should have done much better, or we wouldn’t have had to worry about overtime.”

Riley said it looked to him like there was contact on the play.

“I don’t know. I didn’t have the greatest vantage point,” Riley said. “I don’t know if it’s necessary for me to comment any further, but it looked like something was going on over there.”

Tommy Armstrong Jr. lofted a fourth-down pass into the end zone that was broken up, setting off a celebration of Badger players in front of the Wisconsin student section.

“We knew we were a great team and we played a great team. Wisconsin is good,” said Armstrong, who rushed for 39 yards, threw for 153 and surpassed 10,000 career total yards.

“Neither team gave up. There were some tough situations, definitely some adversity both teams had to get through, but at the end of the game, the better team won. We can’t make mistakes against a great team.”

Armstrong threw two interceptions, both in the first half, and the second resulted in a Wisconsin field goal. The Badgers led 10-7 at halftime, and took the opening kickoff of the second half and drove 73 yards in 13 plays for a touchdown while eating 6:36 off the third-quarter clock.

Nebraska later answered with a 14-play, 55-yard drive that Armstrong capped with a 2-yard touchdown run with 13:45 remaining, pulling the Huskers within 17-14.

That’s when senior safety Nathan Gerry gave the Blackshirts a lift with his first of two fourth-quarter inceptions. This one set up the Huskers at the Wisconsin 46-yard line.

And that’s as far as the Huskers got after three plays.

“That was really a disappointing series, there’s no doubt about it,” Riley said. “It felt like such a big opportunity for our team, and then to get nothing there, was pretty scary as to the outcome.”

Yet Gerry came through with another interception, the 14th of his career that put him in second place on the Nebraska career charts, only one shy of the top spot. This time, the Huskers capitalized, driving for the game-tying field goal.

“I just knew toward the end of the game how they were going to start attacking us,” Gerry said. “I knew that, once our D-line started to stop the run. They started to realize that and they had to attack us in the air. I knew the way they were going to attack us was over routes and things like that.”

In the first half, Armstrong threw a 31-yard completion to Westerkamp, who shook off a tackle from Sojourn Shelton for extra yardage to the Wisconsin 4-yard line. Nebraska’s offensive line, which lost starting guard Tanner Farmer to an ankle injury in the first quarter, and H-backs did a yeoman’s job picking up a ferocious Badgers blitz on the third-and-long play.

Devine Ozigbo scored on a 1-yard touchdown run to tie the game, and just as Gerry had predicted earlier in the week, the Huskers were in a fight.

“We knew we’d be in a boxing match to the end,” Gerry said. “I just kept on telling the guys from the beginning of the game, just keep believing, keep fighting, because you never know. We did our job.

“I thought the defense played pretty well. We could’ve stepped up in certain situations but that’s football. They’re going to make plays, too.”

Nebraska (7-1, 4-1 Big Ten) remains in first place in the Big Ten West Division as it prepares for another tough road night battle at Ohio State.

Suffice it to say, heads won’t be hanging around North Stadium this week.

“This team’s been through so much that one loss isn’t going to bring us down,” Gerry said. “We’re a bunch of fighters and I’m proud of the way we played tonight.”

Reach Brian at brosenthal@huskers.com or follow him on Twitter at GBRosenthal.