Have the Nebraska Cornhuskers turned into the Oakland Raiders?

The head coach had a near meltdown, unleashing his fury on the referees and his quarterback, then chasing after one of the officials before going to the middle of the field for the postgame handshake.

The big boss called out the coach in the media before having a do-better talk with him.

Sounds like the Oakland Raiders.

It's actually the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

A program long known for its solid reputation and its winning ways has lost its luster. Oh, the Cornhuskers are winning again, returning to the Big 12 championship game, preparing to face Oklahoma on Saturday night and aiming for their first conference title this decade, but the shine is off Nebraska.

Truth be told, this was a team that seemed to be in total disarray the second half of the season.

It started with the Texas game in mid-October. Taylor Martinez came into the game as a potential Heisman Trophy contender, but the quarterback was pulled in the third quarter for ineffectiveness.

He was off. He was abysmal. And that was after his benching.

Martinez spent the rest of that game all but ignoring his teammates. He wasn't in the offensive meetings on the sidelines offering encouragement. He wasn't in backup Zac Lee's ear giving support. Remember, too, that was a hard-fought game won by Texas by only a touchdown.

I understand that Martinez was disappointed, but as the starting quarterback, he is a team leader.

He needed to act like it.

The person Martinez might've talked to most during the second half of that game was his father. Late in the contest, Martinez's dad made his way down to the bench from his seat in the stadium, and father and son spent the last minute and a half of the game talking.