Gus Johnson Called Out Jeff Sims For Costing Nebraska Games. Sims Promptly Threw An Interception On The Very Next Play

You know you’re a great broadcaster when you can avoid the announcer jinx. I have to give Gus Johnson some credit here. He called his shot early in the game. I am aware of the fact that him and Joel Klatt were calling the Nebraska/Minnesota game last week. It’s been a rough first two weeks of the year for Gus Johnson. But this was a 3-0 game when Johnson declared that Sims was costing Nebraska games. He turned out to be correct. 

My apologies to Will Compton, and my apologies to Jeff Sims. I don’t want to kick people when they’re down. I think Matt Rhule will end up doing a good job in Nebraska, but it is bizarre how consistent Nebraska is with their inability to avoid doing dumb shit. Scott Frost burned out fast at Nebraska, but they were consistently like two plays every game away from being victorious. Yeah, close doesn’t matter, but I figured some of that would get cleaned up when Rhule took over. It still might, but through two games, they look sloppy. 

I’ve always appreciated the fact that Gus Johnson doesn’t sugarcoat it. He wants to call electric games. He wants to be a big game announcer. Any schmuck can do play-by-play for a random Big Ten game in the middle of September. This was national TV. And pretty early on, you could tell Gus Johnson could see things going sideways. 

As much as this moment made me chuckle, it’s pretty bold for a play-by-play announcer to just straight up say that a quarterback is losing his team games. I feel like Gus Johnson ignored some sort of bedside manner here. It made for a really funny moment, but that kind of criticism is usually left to the analysts (and the fans). 

Johnson is also completely correct here. Sims has been a turnover machine in the season's first two games, and I don't see that changing. As I said, I think Matt Rhule will do a good job, but so much of his success will depend on whether they can find a legitimate quarterback. Seriously, when was the last time Nebraska had an elite quarterback? Tommy Frazier? It's getting ugly, and Gus Johnson is taking notice.