Note: This is part of a series that will run periodically during the season. If your team’s sob stories haven’t run yet, your time is coming. Fans of the Badgers, Nittany Lions, and Hawkeyes have already had theirs.

Nebraska has been in the Big Ten for a decade now and there’s plenty of pain to share from those 10 seasons — maybe more than any other era, given the expectations.

So rather than go all BTN and highlight the “Big Ten Elite” from a 1994 team that played in the Big 8, we’ll pick losses from recent seasons. This is, after all, Saturday Tradition. (Not that there were any to pick from that 1994 national championship season, the first of three that decade. See what I did there?)

With 5 losses this season by a combined 28 points, the Huskers keep inventing novel ways to torment the faithful. Here’s some of the worst of previous campaigns:

2017: Iowa 56, Nebraska 14

There are a few notable losses in the Huskers’ 6-game skid against the Hawkeyes (Keith Duncan’s kick and a kiss in 2019, clapgate in 2020), but this one ended the Mike Riley era, gave the school its worst record since 1961 and put Iowa ahead in the Heroes Trophy series, something few thought possible when the “rivalry” was created in an AAU-certified lab — or boardroom — or HyVee. It’s now 7-3 Hawks, but they have a long way to go to catch the Huskers in the overall series (29-19-3). If they do, plan on a few more haunts along the way.

2014: Wisconsin 59, Nebraska 24

One season the Hawkeyes weren’t an issue was 2014. Nebraska rallied from a 24-7 third quarter deficit to win in OT while Huskers athletic director Shawn Eichorst “evaluated where Iowa was at as a program” and fired Bo Pelini anyway. Perhaps a snowy day in Madison 2 weeks earlier when Melvin Gordon ran for 42, 62, 39, 44, 43 and 68 on his way to an NCAA-record 408 yards had something to do with it. If you aren’t occasionally waking up in the middle of the night with a shadow figure of Gordon sitting on your chest like he did the Huskers defense, share your sleep aid secrets with the rest of the class.

2011: Northwestern 28, Nebraska 25

Speaking of dominant rushing, albeit in a different form … let’s travel back in time to Nebraska’s first year in the Big Ten. You might pick the Huskers’ 48-17 conference-opening loss to Wisconsin as the worst omen you remember. But perhaps you’ve just blacked out a 13-play, 7:21, 66-yard touchdown drive to seal the victory that featured absolutely zero passes. This was not your father’s Northwestern — or Nebraska. It was the Wildcats’ first win over a top 10 team since … 2009. The Huskers have spent a total of 4 weeks in the top 10 since, all in 2016.

2019: Minnesota 34, Nebraska 7

Nebraska was picked by more than one expert to win the Big Ten West in 2019. After all, Scott Frost won a national championship in his second year at UCF. A division should be no problem. A loss to former Big 12 rival Colorado in OT was disappointing, but not deadly to the preseason’s 24th-ranked team in the nation. A 48-7 loss to Ohio State with College GameDay in attendance in Lincoln had to be expected in most equations that still ended with a division title. But losing at upstart and unbeaten (and somehow still unranked at the time) Minnesota? By 27? When this was the year for Frost to make a jump, not PJ Fleck (who, to be fair, had a year head start on his rebuild)? It started a slide of 4 losses that added Indiana, Purdue and Wisconsin to the list while giving up 30-plus in each one.

2018: Troy 24, Nebraska 19

Sure, everyone knew a rebuilding year was in progress, like a baseball team full of prospects losing 100 games. But an 0-6 start to the Scott Frost era with Akron (canceled by lightning) and Troy in that stretch? College football turnarounds can be quicker than that. One man can make a difference. Come on, it’s Nebraska at home vs. Troy in Week 3, with the Trojans already having a 56-20 home loss to Boise State on the resume. The Huskers had not started 0-2 since 1957, and it was their 6th consecutive home loss dating to 2017’s 4-8 debacle. They never recovered. Losses to Michigan, Purdue, Wisconsin and Northwestern followed.

2012: Wisconsin 70, Nebraska 31, B1G Championship Game

It didn’t take long for Nebraska to rise to the precipice of a championship in its new conference, even if it was probably a year behind fans’ expectations. But it also didn’t take long in this game to realize the Legends Division-winning Huskers weren’t the big dogs of the Big Ten. Ohio State and Penn State were ineligible, so third-place “Leader” Wisconsin got the nod for Indy. Two quick scores eventually turned into a 46-point lead that put the Badgers on cruise control, and Nebraska has been looking up at Wisconsin ever since.