Welcome to the Groin Kick Chronicles: A Mathematical Ranking of Nebraska's 70 Losses In The Groin Kick Era

In 2011, Nebraska began their first season as a member of the Big Ten Conference. In those early years, 2011-14, they’d go 22-10 in league play; 37-16 overall. Of the 16 losses, eleven were by double-digits. By 31 at Wisconsin in 2011, by 25 Ohio State in 2012, by 39 in the Big Ten title game vs. Wisconsin in 2012 (Wisconsin blew them out a lot). When Nebraska lost in those four years, they LOST.

But something weird happened when the game was decided by one-score. No matter who the opponent was, they almost always found a way to win. Nebraska went 2-1 in 2011, 4-1 in 2012, and 5-0 in 2013.

They had one-score wins over blue bloods like Penn State and Michigan.

A one-score win over Ohio State.

And even a one-score win over an FCS team in McNeese State.

From 2011-14, Nebraska went an astounding 13-5 in one-score games. That’s 72.2%.

And then, it all changed.

Two days after that OT win over Iowa – you know, the one where Nebraska picked up a first down and touchdown, their last in a decade? – Nebraska’s athletics director, Shawn Eichorst, fired Bo Pelini.

Nebraska fans have been in hell ever since.

In 10 full seasons since that 2014 win over Iowa (and the bowl game that finished up that season), Nebraska has found themselves in 63 games decided by a single touchdown.

They’ve only won 17.

The first game after Bo Pelini was fired? You guessed it, a one-score loss to USC.

The first game of the Mike Riley era? You know it, a one-score loss to BYU.

Their second loss of 2015. You know what to do.

Mike Riley’s 2015 Cornhuskers started 3-6. Five of those losses were by one score.

Since the 2014 Holiday Bowl vs. USC, Nebraska has lost 70 times. Of those 70 losses, 46 have come by eight points or fewer. The team that won 72.2% of one-score games over a four-year span has since gone 17-46 in those same types of games.

That’s 26.9%.

26.9%!

70 losses. 70 losses over the course of ten seasons (and one game). “Here we go again,” has assuredly been uttered by thousands of Husker fans of the course of those 70 losses. Hell, it’s probably been uttered in some of those 17 wins, as Nebraska attempted to give the game away.

But which of the losses represented the worst of the worst? No, not which game featured the largest margin of victory.

Which of the losses was the perfect representation of… the Groin Kick. When it’s not just a loss, it’s a movement. When it’s not just one L in the column, but the culmination of another are you kidding me moment that resulted in another loss and even more heartbreak.

In an era of groin kicks, which loss of its era was the absolute worst of the worst?

Welcome to the Groin Kick Chronicles, a mathematical ranking of Nebraska’s last 70 losses, from the 2014 Holiday Bowl all the way to the 2024 matchup in Iowa City vs. the Iowa Hawkeyes.

“Why on earth are you doing this?” you might ask.

Great question.

Following Nebraska’s loss to USC last November, Jack Mitchell and I turned on our cameras and mics for another I-80 Club After Dark. Not even 20 minutes into the podcast, Jack laid out his case that this loss to the Trojans represented everything we’ve come to know about this era of football. It had all the hallmarks, he said.

An idea was born.

The bones of this entire project began that night. If we could pinpoint the start of the Groin Kick Era of Husker football, would it be possible to rank those games? And if we could rank the games, how would we go about doing so?

Months later, we finally have the answer.

When did the Groin Kick Era begin? Ultimately, we settled on the loss to USC in the 2014 Holiday Bowl. Some might think this is too random of a game – and that it didn’t hurt enough – to qualify. I told someone in my life about this beginning the starting point and was actually told, “The Groin Kick Era started 24 years ago!” Meaning the 62-36 loss on the road at Colorado in 2001.

Each critique is fair! But I think the USC game is a strong starting point for multiple reasons:

1. It’s the first game after Nebraska’s last overtime win: As you’ll see over the next two months, this is incredibly important to the entire era of Husker football. Since that win over the Hawkeyes in November of 2014, Nebraska has failed to pick up a first down, let alone scored any points, on their way to 0-8 in OT games. In fact, the yardage, because of all the sacks against Illinois last year, is now in the negative! There’s no argument from me that Nebraska’s issues kicked into high gear on Black Friday in 2001, but there’s no doubt something changed after that win over Iowa in 2014.

In fact, Jack Mitchell hit on this very point all the way back in 2019!

2. I have nowhere near enough time to rank every loss going back an additional 13 years: Sorry! Maybe the next project will be to rank every single loss the program has ever had. That day, however, is not today.

Ok, so it’s starting in 2014. How the hell did you actually go about ranking these games? I’m glad you asked.

First, I’d like to give a huge shoutout to the entire I-80 Club for helping decide on the parameters, with a special thanks going to Eric Reidelbach, Jordan Schmidt, and Matt Connolly. Those three in particular helped me with the process of inputting every bit of data we decided on, how to go about organizing it, and generally walking me through Google Sheets. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to put this project together like I did. I owe them a ton.

So, what did we decide on? Seven separate categories:

• Opponent: If Nebraska played a team that Nebraska fans hate – think Iowa or Colorado – it was weighted more. If it was a G5 or non-conference team fans have no real opinions on, it was weighted less. On top of that, how good was the opponent? We used Bill Connelly’s SP+ rankings to put each team in a bucket and apply it to the overall opponent ranking.
• Game importance: A variety of factors went into this category, including if it represented a second, third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth consecutive loss within a season. Was the game for a bowl berth? Was the loss in OT? We devised a system to put more of an emphasis on games and losses that meant more – that hurt more – for Husker fans.
• Postgame win probability: How likely was Nebraska to win the game based on the stats of the game. Another way to describe it? If you took all of the plays in a game and shuffled them into a random order, how often would each team be expected to win?
• Max second half win probability: You know those graphs that have become a mainstay around here the last decade or so? The ones where Nebraska has a 98% chance and then it suddenly crashes? Yeah, we built that in. The worst of the worst were at the top; think games like 2018 Northwestern, as shown below. But we also made sure games like Nebraska’s 62-3 loss to Ohio State in 2016 were pushed up a bit. Perhaps not a Groin Kick loss like the Northwestern one, but terrible nonetheless.

• Margin of defeat: We wanted to make sure a 1–3-point loss was rated different than 4-8, 9-14, or even 33-42 points. We plugged in the margin of defeat from every game in to build our model. Big time blowout losses were weighted higher as well.
• Total yards disparity: Similar to the above, though with a twist. Did Nebraska win the yardage battle? Yes, well that means it’s rated higher. Did they lose the yardage battle by 200 or more? That high up as well.
• Late-game shift: Game by game, we ranked the most back-breaking plays to happen in fourth quarters. Think of the Michigan State punt return in 2021 or Iowa’s blocked punt in 2021. Honestly, just think of a lot of horrible plays that happened in the 2021 season and you'll get the picture.

So, you did all that and it gave you a 1-70 ranking? Sure did! Well, we had one tie in there, but otherwise it’s 1-70.

Did anything surprise you? Definitely! The top 10 is a who’s who of matchups and results that are horrifying to think about, and will be for a while. The number one choice? I was a little stunned, I’ll be honest. Even the bottom 10 featured games I figured would be a whole lot higher. But that made it quite the fun (if that's the right word) process. Each bit of math moved games around, with some continuing to climb all the way until the very end when we plugged the last bit of data in.

Is this gonna make me mad? Probably! This has been a months-long process, which means I’ve been researching every game, pulling together lowlights, and revisiting every single loss Nebraska has had the last ten years. These losses are bad!

What can we expect from this project? It’s pretty simple: Starting today, you’ll get one episode and write up, going through games in groups of 10 (until the top 10, which will be broken up 10-6 and 5-1). 70-61 is available right now, with 60-51 coming next week, 50-41 the following week, etc. Every set of losses will have the game-by-game rankings before Jack Mitchell and I discuss a game, moment, or something else that stands out from each group. Sometimes, we’ll focus on one game a little longer than the other, but we'll discuss each and every loss from this time period; our memories, the plays that stick with us all these years later, and more.

On top of that, we’ll have bonus episodes exclusively for I-80 Club subscribers. Special guests, three brand new episodes of Be Kind Husker Rewind, and conversations diving into games, plays, and moments. We hope to have bonus episodes to go along with every single episode and we think you’ll really dig it.

Why are you doing this to us? Do you hate us? Of course not!

There’s something about sports fans (or maybe it’s just me) where we love talking about the big wins, but there’s this weird satisfaction in telling another group of fans, “yeah but our worst loss was WAY WORSE than anything you’ve ever had to deal with!” I recently was out with Jack Mitchell and his son Johnny. We got to telling him about what we were up to and suddenly all three of us were debating the worst games, worst plays, and most heartbreaking moments. An hour or so went by before we started talking about something other than the horrific losses we've seen since December of 2014.

That’s what the Groin Kick Chronicles are all about. For years, Jack Mitchell has been saying, “no one has had it worse than Husker fans.” In a way, this project is about trying to prove him right or wrong.

Welcome to the Groin Kick Chronicles. Embrace the pain.

If you have a comment for Josh, send him an email: joshpeterson.huskermax@gmail.com.

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