The hardest thing to reconcile about Nebraska isn’t the losing. Nebraska has lost for a long time, and it can’t be shocking to anyone when the Cornhuskers get manhandled by a better team, even if that team is Minnesota.

But look at these preseason quotes from second-year coach Scott Frost: “If I’m just comparing apples to apples with where we were last year, I know we’re a long way ahead of where we were. Guys’ understanding is better. I think they’re more physically ready to go. I think they’re fresh. I think they’re excited. I think they’re more confident. So, I’m pleased with where we are now, but we need to go out and prove it."

Or how about this one at Big Ten media days: “Probably of all the areas we’ve improved, strength and conditioning across the board on our team has improved the most.”

Or this one during an appearance on Big Ten Network about higher expectations in Year 2: “I actually think it’s good for our football team. I think expectations have been way too low in Lincoln for way too long.”

Those aren’t the comments of a coach who was hedging his bets coming into the season. If anything, they suggested Frost was supremely confident in Nebraska making a big leap in Year 2. But the results are clear now: Whatever Frost expected his team to be hasn’t materialized in the slightest. You can even make the argument Nebraska is playing worse football now than it was at the end of last season.

Nebraska got bowled over by Minnesota, 34-7, allowing 322 rushing yards on 49 attempts, exposing the Huskers’ lack of physicality up front to go along with all kinds of other flaws. Though Nebraska might have had a better chance if quarterback Adrian Martinez had been healthy enough to play — he was listed as a game-time decision but sat out due to a left knee injury — it was another reminder the Huskers haven’t passed the eye test as a good football team at any point this season.

They struggled with South Alabama. They struggled with Illinois and Northwestern. They got blown out by Ohio State. And the idea that they started the season on the cusp of the Amway Coaches Poll with Frost cheerleading those expectations all the way now seems like a major farce.

The cold slap of reality for Nebraska fans is that they're still far, far away from being relevant in college football — and if Frost isn’t capable of getting them there, who is? That’s why Nebraska is No. 1 in the Misery Index, a weekly measurement of knee-jerk reactions based on what each fan base just watched.

FOUR MORE IN MISERY

Georgia: At some point, Georgia fans will have to reckon with the biggest what-if of Kirby Smart’s tenure. As much success as Jake Fromm has had as the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback, this was a program that at one point had Jacob Eason as the starter and Justin Fields coming in as perhaps the most celebrated quarterback recruit the state of Georgia has ever produced. Now there’s just Fromm in that quarterback room, which is good but may not be good enough to win a national championship. Georgia’s 20-17 loss to South Carolina highlighted why the Bulldogs' offense is still tough to trust in a high-leverage situation. Fromm threw three picks, struggled with his accuracy on medium and down-field throws and played tight after throwing a pick-six late in the first half that gave South Carolina a 17-10 lead. Some fans will blame the playcalling of offensive coordinator James Coley or Smart’s overall conservative approach, which may be fair. But some of this is on Fromm, too. If the primary reason he’s your quarterback is because he gets you in the right play and prevents bad ones, as Smart has alluded to many times, then days where he has a lot of bad ones are even more magnified. And as Fields ascends each week for Ohio State, it’s going to be hard for Georgia fans to stop themselves from wondering if they’d have been better off as a program this year had he gotten a legitimate opportunity to play last year, even if he was too raw to supplant Fromm as a starter as a freshman. Now he’s gone, and it may be awhile before Georgia has a quarterback talent like that on its roster again.

Mississippi State: Joe Moorhead got the job at Mississippi State despite no real ties in the Southeast because athletics director John Cohen wanted someone who was cerebral and innovative offensively, two traits that served Dan Mullen well there even though he was a bit of an odd cultural fit having grown up in New Hampshire. But even though their résumés may be similar, nobody would confuse the quality of football being produced by those two coaches. Whereas Mullen consistently beat expectations in Starkville, Moorhead inherited a program loaded with talent and has gone 11-8 with it (the record dips to 6-8 when you just consider Power Five opponents). The low point came Saturday when the Bulldogs lost to Tennessee, 20-10, giving the Vols — who had only beaten Chattanooga this year — their first SEC victory. (As an aside, Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt was a finalist for the Mississippi State job when Moorhead got it.) Under Moorhead, Mississippi State just doesn’t seem to have any real purpose or identity on offense. Nick Fitzgerald was an established successful starting quarterback in the SEC but took a step backward in Moorhead’s system. This year, the Bulldogs were supposed to thrive with Penn State transfer Tommy Stevens, who transferred in already knowing the system. Instead, Stevens has been banged up and freshman Garrett Shrader has been more effective with his ability to run. The Bulldogs went back and forth between the two against the Vols and it was a mess offensively. Fans already kind of knew this before Saturday, but losing to Tennessee made it official: This is the most disappointing program in the SEC right now.

BYU: The Misery Index hates to repeat itself, but the Cougars have been put into a no-win situation by their athletic administration. They want to play as many elite, brand-name programs as possible as an independent. But the programs BYU wants to play typically only have schedule openings in September, which means BYU loads up on its toughest games right out of the gate. That’s good for television exposure, but the long-term effect on BYU’s program has been horrible. The Cougars suffered a truly putrid 27-23 loss to a bad South Florida team on Saturday, and the only conclusion you can draw from it is that BYU has once again punched itself out trying to navigate the rigorous first month of the season. This just doesn’t look like the same team that was out there beating Tennessee and Southern Cal and giving Utah all it could handle for a half. A lot of BYU’s problems stem from quarterback Zach Wilson suffering a hand injury in a loss to Toledo on Sept. 28. To make matters worse, the Cougars lost quarterback Jaren Hall to injury late in the game at South Florida and had to turn to Baylor Romney. But that's sort of the problem with the whole setup: Because of how frontloaded the schedule is every year, the Cougars have no margin for error. BYU is a physically beaten up football team that happens to be 2-4, and there’s little reason for fans to be excited about anything that might happen in the second half.

Houston: This has been a bad week for first-year coach Dana Holgorsen because the biggest reason to pay attention to his program came via Twitter posts from former offensive lineman Justin Murphy, who accused Holgorsen of actively tanking this season by asking healthy players to redshirt after four games. Murphy, a graduate transfer from UCLA, claimed he was effectively suspended because he didn’t buy into the plan but acknowledged that he was dealing with significant knee injuries. He also said Holgorsen refused to look him in the eye when they met in his office to confirm Murphy’s exit from the program. It’s possible Murphy isn’t telling the whole story or isn’t accurately portraying how the situation played out, but there’s no doubt Houston raised all kinds of questions when quarterback D’Eriq King and receiver Keith Corbin announced on Sept. 30 that they were shutting themselves down for the rest of the season to develop and preserve their season of eligibility under the NCAA’s relatively new four-game redshirt rule. That decision has left Houston in a really bad place as a football team, as it lost 38-23 to Cincinnati on Saturday to fall to 2-4. Meanwhile, because King is sitting out, Houston is being forced to play sophomore Clayton Tune, who hasn't practiced in two weeks due to a hamstring injury. Tune predictably wasn’t all that effective, completing 9-of-27 for 184 yards with three interceptions. As for Murphy’s allegations, Holgorsen basically brushed them off, telling reporters it was a “non-story.” Houston fans may not agree if Holgorsen keeps losing.

TRENDING TOWARD MISERY

Michigan State: After getting shut out and brutalized by Wisconsin 38-0, Mark Dantonio was asked a pretty reasonable question. Given how badly the Spartans have struggled on offense this season, was it a mistake to keep the same coaches whose offense didn’t work the last couple of years and just give them different responsibilities? Dantonio, however, didn't think that was a reasonable question on Saturday. In fact, he called it “sort of a dumbass question” because Michigan State is only seven games into the season. But haven’t we seen enough in those seven games to acknowledge Dantonio got it wrong and needs to look at big solutions rather than small ones? Against the best teams it has played, Sparty has been held to 10 points by Ohio State, seven by Arizona State and only had two drives of more than 20 yards against the Badgers. If Dantonio was asked a bad question, it’s only because we already know the answer.

Vanderbilt: Even when things looked bleak for the Commodores early this season, the Oct. 12 game against UNLV seemed like a safe harbor. If you’re a Power Five team, you schedule UNLV for two reasons: To get an easy win and to give your fans a fun road trip. Vanderbilt will make its return trip to Las Vegas in 2023. Maybe by then, the Commodores will have their act together because they certainly didn’t on Saturday in a crushing 34-10 loss at home. Somehow, Vandy seems to be getting worse as the season goes along, and this pure capitulation to a UNLV team that had previously only beaten Southern Utah suggests that Derek Mason’s message is no longer resonating in that locker room. Vanderbilt is a tough job, but its fan base is fairly reasonable. When you reach the point where you’re getting blown out by UNLV and it doesn’t seem like a fluke, those fans no longer have the same tolerance for ineptitude.

Memphis: Tigers fans have a legitimate gripe today with American Athletic Conference officials, who overturned a call that cost the Tigers a chance to beat Temple on Saturday and try to extend an unbeaten regular season. With 1:50 remaining and Memphis trailing 30-28, tight end Joey Magnifico appeared to make a tremendous diving grab on a fourth-down pass that would have given the Tigers a first down at Temple's 30 and a great chance to complete the comeback. The referee closest to the play ruled it a catch. The replays shown on television seemed to show Magnifico getting both arms under the ball without it touching the ground. Yet replay officials somehow found enough evidence to overturn the call, which effectively ended the game. Memphis fans and some players took to Twitter ripping the decision. “We just got robbed broad daylight no mask,” defensive back T.J. Carter tweeted. It appears he may be right.

Maryland: Remember when everyone was talking about how much Mike Locksley had learned working for Nick Saban and about how his second try at the head coaching thing was going to be so much better than his first? Maybe those takes were a bit premature. Maryland has been blown out in two of its last three games including Saturday's 40-14 loss at Purdue and now faces a gauntlet of six consecutive opponents with winning records. In other words, the 3-3 Terrapins may end up no better off than they’ve been in recent years, which didn’t seem likely when they were 2-0 and coming off an impressive blowout over Syracuse. Though Maryland didn’t have starting quarterback Josh Jackson available against Purdue, that doesn’t excuse giving up 547 yards of offense. As much as Maryland fans want to believe that bringing back Locksley was the right move given his history as an offensive coordinator at Maryland and his recruiting ties in the area, let’s just say the evidence about his effectiveness as a head coach is still lacking.

North Texas: Despite losing offensive coordinator Graham Harrell to Southern Cal, everyone kind of expected the Mean Green to continue putting up big offensive numbers and winning a bunch of games in Conference USA. One headline on Yahoo! Sports last December even declared that North Texas could be the "next UCF.” But that hasn’t been the case. North Texas slipped to 2-4 after a 45-27 loss at Southern Miss. Though defense is clearly an issue for North Texas, the offense has been less effective since Harrell’s departure. A year ago, the Mean Green averaged 460 yards a game. This season, they’re down to 439 and rank 105th nationally in third-down conversions at 34.4%. Veteran quarterback Mason Fine suffered a shoulder injury late in the Southern Miss game, but he hasn't lived up to expectations this season, throwing for 300-plus yards just twice and seeing his completion percentage dip from 64.6 to 60.2.

FIVE TOTALLY REAL AND IRRATIONAL MESSAGE BOARD THREADS

“We need to import a bunch of Iowa girls into Nebraska and start breeding in-state linemen” - Huskeronline.com

“Is Kirby Les Miles 2.0?” - Dawgs247

“Maybe should have hired Pruitt after all.” - Gene’s Page (Mississippi State)

“Thank you Mark, for lowering my expectations and blood pressure” - Spartan Tailgate

“For the first time, I found myself not caring” - Vandymania