Advertisement

The Nebraska-Illinois Total Will Go Down As One Of The Craziest CFB Gambling Experiences of the Year

We are one game into the 2021 college football season and the total in Nebraska-Illinois will still stand as one of the most ridiculous gambling games of the year when the season concludes. This thing was nuts.

I, like several of my co-workers, had the under 52.5 points. This thing was 9-2 with less than 3:00 left in the second quarter before Illinois scored to tie it. But even then, we're sitting pretty.

Until Nebraska's Adrian Martinez capped what we'll call a less-than-stellar drive to end the half with a fumble which turned into a scoop and score to end the first half with 25 points.

Then we had the Third Quarter From Hell, in which Illinois scored on back-to-back drives, only for Martinez to completely redeem himself with a 75-yard touchdown run to bring the total to 46 with more than a full quarter left in the game. All hope seemed lost.

One touchdown and extra point in the final 19 minutes and we were toast.

And so we get all the way to within three minutes, where the Cornhuskers have a first-and-goal inside their own five-yard line. At least we have accepted our fates. But wait, Illinois forces a fourth down attempt. We have a chance.

All for the Illini leave a guy wide open in the end zone. Touchdown.

All Nebraska had to do was knock the PAT through and the under would have been a horrific beat to start the season. I actually turned the game off in disgust and started writing this blog as if that's what happened.

Then I went back to Twitter and saw the unthinkable had occurred.

Advertisement

Oh my God.

And that was not even Nebraska's first missed extra point of the day, either. The Huskers missed two PATs to secure either an amazing win if you had the under or an atrocious loss if you had the over. I am incredibly sorry to those which were on the losing end of this one. What a ridiculous way to start the year.