The fact that Nebraska won four of its final six games in 2018 gives the football program an encouraging slant. The fact that the Cornhuskers have gone 4-8 in consecutive seasons indicates a program which has produced a lot of bad memories recently.

The 2018 season saw Nebraska start 0-6, its worst start in the living memory of a lot of Big Red fans. But it isn’t always the obvious moments of struggle which produce the worst memories.

With that in mind here are my 5 least favorite moments of the 2018 Cornhuskers season.

5. Scheduling Bethune-Cookman

After the Cornhuskers’ opener against Akron was wiped out by bad weather (see entry No. 3) the school set about trying to schedule a makeup game. The program did not want to lose the guaranteed gate generated by yet another sellout at Memorial Stadium. But scheduling a Bowl Championship Subdivision team, and not even a good one, was a pretty cheesy way to go about filling that 12th date. Even worse, the game against Bethune-Cookman was an attempt for Nebraska to become bowl eligible, yet by the time the game actually rolled around it was clear that even that would not help after the Cornhuskers’ 0-6 start.

4. Adrian Martinez injury

The promising freshman quarterback was just starting to show what he could do in his debut against Colorado when he sustained a leg injury near the end of that game. The Cornhuskers lost the game and lost Martinez for the next game, against Troy. Who knows what would have happened if Martinez had faced the Trojans — the whole team was playing so badly that Nebraska might have lost anyway — but it’s safe to say that any game experience Martinez could gain at the start of his college career would be beneficial. Instead Andrew Bunch got his lone start at quarterback and Troy pulled off the upset victory. Fortunately, Martinez returned the following week and, though hobbled at times, he played the rest of the way and developed really nicely as the season progressed.

3. Opening cancellation

A lightning storm delayed the start of the opening game against Akron, then after a wait of two hours Nebraska decided to postpone the game. But rather than trying to play it the next day, the schools simply agreed to cancel. Schools might want to take this possibility into account in the future, certainly schools where severe weather might strike in the summer — like, say, every school in the Midwest, including Nebraska. Travel arrangements like flights and especially hotel availability would be complicated, no doubt, but a better plan B should be in place at all times.

2. Lack of discipline

This entry is not about a particular moment but rather a collection of them. We beat this topic to death this season but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, as Nebraska learned to commit fewer penalties in the second half of the season, the Cornhuskers started winning. In each of the first five games Nebraska was flagged for at least 10 penalties. In Game 6 they stopped that streak — by “only” committing nine penalties in a loss to against a very disciplined Northwestern team. But perhaps something started to sink in for the players after that because in the second half of the season the Cornhuskers were only called for a total of 31 penalties over six games.

1. Ann Arbor debacle

No moment stood out as a symbol of how far Nebraska is from competing with the Big Ten’s elite than this game. Michigan flat-out smoked Nebraska so badly that, if anything, the 56-10 final score flattered the Cornhuskers and not the Wolverines. Michigan outgained Nebraska 491-132 and was so much more physical that Big Red looked awfully small on this September day in Ann Arbor. The 46-point loss was Nebraska’s worst since a 62-3 rout at the hands of Ohio State in 2016.