Pasadena, Calif. — Its offense bottled up, its defense in disarray, Nebraska didn't play like a team that belonged in a national title game.
The Cornhuskers failed to back up a month's worth of boasting, losing to No. 1 Miami 37-14 in the Rose Bowl on Thursday night.
"We didn't play them well enough to make it a competitive game at the end," Nebraska coach Frank Solich said.
"I think any football team would have trouble staying with them the way they played tonight."
The fourth-ranked Huskers fell behind 34-0 by halftime and finished with just 259 yards of offense nearly 200 fewer than their average.
Two second-half touchdowns weren't enough to prevent the embarrassment of losing consecutive games for the first time since the 1990 season.
Miami (12-0) contained Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Eric Crouch in the first half and picked apart the Huskers' defense while keeping Nebraska (11-2) from winning its sixth national title.
Crouch finished with 114 yards rushing, but was just 5-of-15 for 61 yards passing with an interception that was returned for a touchdown.
Dahrran Diedrick gained just 47 yards on 15 carries.
"They shut down our running game and they put us in a lot of situations where it was third-and-long," Crouch said. "They're a very fast defense and they made very good plays."
Nebraska's fans, about two-thirds of the capacity crowd of 93,781, had little to cheer for other than first downs until Judd Davies' 16-yard TD run with 2:39 left in the third quarter.
DeJuan Groce added a 71-yard punt return for a score early in the fourth quarter that got chants of "Go Big Red!" going again, but there wasn't enough time to rally.
The Huskers were playing their first game since losing at Colorado 62-36 on Nov. 23. The Buffaloes took a 31-3 lead early in that game and Nebraska's late comeback effort was futile.
It was the same theme Thursday, only worse.
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