Mickey Joseph shoulders the blame for Nebraska's blowout loss to Oklahoma

In his first game taking over as interim Nebraska head coach after Scott Frost was ran out of town, Mickey Joseph had the unfortunate task of hosting No. 6 Oklahoma. That game played out how most expected. The Top 10-ranked Sooners rolled up 49 points as part of a 49-14 victory in Lincoln.

It was actually Nebraska’s first massively lopsided loss in quite some time, after the Cornhuskers infamously lost a surprising number of close games a year ago. So, what did Joseph have to say in response to his first loss as the Huskers’ head coach?

“Well, like I said on Saturday, that’s on me,” a dejected Joseph admitted at a press conference this week. “I should have slowed the ball down and huddled and took some possessions away from Oklahoma. And I didn’t do that and that’s on me. But they respond. They responded great today. They responded great yesterday.”

At least he ended with a positive note. Then, another reporter followed up on his comment about slowing the offense down, asking if that will be his strategy going forward.

“We will slow it down. So it’s going to be opponent by opponent. But we will slow it down. Help the defense out a little bit,” Joseph responded.

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Even another reporter responded, questioning whether new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple — who spent last season as Kenny Pickett’s OC in the pass-happy Pittsburgh offense — would agree to slowing the Nebraska offense down. According to Mickey Joseph, the two are on the same page.

“Yes he understands that,” Joseph said. “Whip has been a head coach before so he understands what we need to do.”

Lastly, Joseph spent some time reflecting on what he needs to do to help the team improve now that he’s in the big office.

“Things I need to fix, things I need to focus on — and I can’t assume that everything from A to Z, I got to make sure that I cross every T out, dot every I,” he said. “I learned a lot from that first game, but it was a quick turnaround for me. But it’s no excuse. I gotta handle that better than that. Like I said before, I walked up to that mic and I said ‘it’s on me. It’s not all my kids. It’s not all my coaches.”

Lessons learned for everyone on the Nebraska side, even in a rough loss. Onward and upward in the Mickey Joseph era.