A mere 2,191 days ago, Bo Pelini waited for the officials to review Kenny Bell’s potential game-winning touchdown catch in overtime against Iowa. Nebraska had rallied back from down 24-7 facing potentially its third consecutive loss. Pelini was firmly on the hot seat as he coached in the regular season finale against Iowa in a game that some speculated would determine his fate in Lincoln.

When the officials confirmed that Bell did possess the ball long enough to rule it a catch, Pelini walked off the field at Kinnick Stadium victorious. He said afterwards that he had never been prouder of a team in all his years of coaching. Two days later, of course, Pelini was out as Nebraska’s head coach.

On the same field where Nebraska pulled off a miracle, 6 years later, there was once again nothing miraculous about the way another Heroes Trophy game was decided. For the 6th consecutive time in the post-Pelini era, Nebraska found a way to lose to Iowa.

This time, it wasn’t a walk-off field goal like we saw in each of the first 2 years of the Scott Frost era. Iowa won via walk-off sack and fumble of sorts. Kind of. It was a missed protection, Adrian Martinez didn’t process said missed protection and ultimately, it was the same result we’ve seen each of the last 6 years for Nebraska against its rival Iowa.

Yeah, I said it. “Rival.”

Call it manufactured or not, but what was once something so lopsided that Nebraska fans rightfully scoffed at the idea that Iowa could be a rival — Nebraska held Iowa to 13 points or less in 7 of 8 matchups from 1979-2012 — has now swung in the opposite direction.

Don’t get it twisted. Friday’s effort was there. Nebraska did a lot of things well in that game, which it entered as a 2-touchown underdog. Marquel Dismuke made seemingly every big-time run stop he could’ve down the stretch and for the first time during the post-Pelini era, Nebraska actually out-gained Iowa in rushing yards.

But man, nobody could’ve predicted that 2,191 days later, the Huskers would still be without a win against Iowa.

That’s reality. If you believe in fantasy, you might believe that Pelini put a hex on the Huskers the second he coached his last game in 2014. I mean, the numbers confirm that.

Heading into Friday, Iowa’s 5-game winning streak against Nebraska included an average rushing advantage of 121 yards per contest. That was also the 6th consecutive game against Iowa in which Nebraska came up short of 30 points. That was actually Iowa’s worst offensive output in that stretch with just 26 points.

Think about this. From 1931-2014, Iowa won 6 total games in 23 matchups against Nebraska. That’s 83 years of essentially every living Husker fan rightfully believing that there’s no rivalry to be had.

Now? Nobody in that Iowa locker room has ever experienced a Nebraska loss. Beyond just the head-to-head matchup, look at the programs as a whole from 2015-present:

  • Iowa 51-21, Nebraska 29-38
  • Iowa 5 winning seasons, Nebraska 1 winning season
  • Iowa 5 seasons with 8 wins, Nebraska 1 season with 8 wins
  • Iowa 3 top-25 finishes (and counting), Nebraska 0 top-25 finishes

You didn’t need those numbers to tell you who the better program has been the last 5.5 seasons. In the same way there wasn’t any debate about that in the previous decades before that, it’s an overwhelmingly obvious answer in the post-Pelini era.

This is all worth bringing up because it feels like Iowa has become the “yeah, but” on Nebraska’s schedule. The Hawkeyes to the Huskers are Lucy to Charlie Brown. It always seems like whenever Nebraska is on the verge of a key late-season accomplishment — a bowl game, a 10th win, not falling to 1-4, etc. — there’s Iowa to pull the ball at the last second.

At this point, we should see it coming. We shouldn’t be surprised when Charlie Brown whiffs in miserable fashion.

There were moments on Friday when it felt like that all over again. Fumbling a punt down 23-20 in the 4th quarter after your defense forces a 3-and-out is peak-Nebraska in the post-Pelini era. Well, I don’t think we can really call that a fumble if the returner sort of swats at the ball and barely tips it.

Iowa has almost become this strange microcosm for Nebraska. Not every game in this current streak has been some start-to-finish beatdown like 2016. Again, we’re talking about 3 consecutive 1-score losses that have gone wire-to-wire.

Is it bad luck? I wouldn’t necessarily call it that. It was Iowa who doinked the potential game-sealing field goal late to open the door for Nebraska. The opportunity was there for Martinez, AKA Nebraska’s part-time signal-caller who got the start on Friday. There’s just always a new way for it to finish in horribly deflating fashion for Nebraska.

Like, Friday was new because Nebraska actually got a lead against Iowa. Despite those close endings, the Huskers finally ended a streak of 200 minutes and 11 seconds without a lead against Iowa. Rahmir Johnson’s touchdown run in the third quarter gave Nebraska its first lead against Iowa of the Frost era … which lasted approximately 6 minutes and 18 seconds.

Here’s the real kicker. In the post-Pelini era, Nebraska has played 360 minutes of football against Iowa … and it had a lead for 19 minutes and 29 seconds. That’s it.

Nebraska can talk about returning to prominence all it wants, but until that number turns around, don’t hold your breath. Iowa isn’t just the thorn in Nebraska’s side. It’s the annual late-November reminder that it can’t even control the game against a decent divisional foe.

One of the Huskers’ ways of busting out of their current rut was to grow mustaches. Frost praised the week of practice his team had and how intense it was coming off the embarrassing Illinois loss. He even tried rotating his quarterbacks. In the end, though, there really wasn’t any slump-busting performance to be had by the visiting team in Iowa City.

Two different Nebraska coaches have lost to Iowa 3 times in the post-Pelini era. Frost joined a club that surely few thought he’d enter. Perhaps next year he could do something that should’ve been done years ago — call up Pelini and beg him the reverse the black and gold curse.

Hey, it seems like a better plan than growing mustaches.