• Photo Showcase: Capital One Bowl (fans)
• Photo Showcase: Capital One Bowl (action)
• Video Below: Postgame press conference, game highlights, analysis and sights and sounds from Orlando, Fla.
• Shatel's Blog: Tom's Take: Capital One Bowl
• Big Red Blog: Pelini: Nebraska wasted opportunities in loss

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ORLANDO, Fla. — Call Vegas. Get your favorite pigeon on the line for a sucker bet. Here's your first stone-cold lock of the 2012 college football season.

Nebraska will play in the Rose Bowl.

That's right. You heard it here last: the Huskers will set foot in Pasadena, Calif., next season.

That would be Sept. 8, 2012, when Nebraska plays UCLA in the Rose Bowl Stadium, Pasadena, U.S.A.

What, you think they're going to play in the actual Rose Bowl game?

At this point, if you gave the Huskers a map to Pasadena, they'd end up in Pasadena, Texas.

They'd better wake up. Nebraska has a lot back next season, particularly on offense. The schedule sets up. Wisconsin and Michigan State lose key figures. Michigan comes to 10th Street. Win the Legends and you could see a watered-down Leaders champ; Urban Meyer's team won't be eligible for the Big Ten title game.

The opportunity for a run to the Roses is there. But you saw what the Huskers did when opportunity knocked on Monday at the Capital One Bowl. They tripped over the doormat.

The Big Red lost to South Carolina 30-13, and this was one of the more ridiculous losses in Bo Pelini's tenure. Or any tenure.

I don't want to hear how Nebraska was the better team, as Pelini tried to sell reporters afterward. The better team won. The better team finds a way to win. The loser finds a way to lose.

Pelini's team found countless ways in the 13th game of the year, with a month to prepare.

The Huskers scored early, easily, then had an extra point blocked — and returned by the Gamecocks for two points.

Ameer Abdullah had the ball stripped as he appeared to make a first down inside the South Carolina 5-yard line and the Gamecocks recovered.

Taylor Martinez threw an interception right to Stephon Gilmore at the South Carolina 26 to kill another scoring op.

Finally, with everyone and Mickey Mouse aware of the Hail Mary play coming at the end of the half, Nebraska somehow allowed Alshon Jeffery to get behind and haul it in for a touchdown as time expired.

Nebraska pushed South Carolina all over the field in the first half, and wound up down 16-13. No problem. As Pelini told the ESPN reporter at half, repeatedly, "We're fine." There's the second half, right?

Not necessarily. Nebraska drove to the South Carolina 8 to start the third quarter, then stalled and missed a 35-yard field goal, a chip shot for Brett Maher this year.

In the second half, NU had a total of five first downs. Nine penalties, including four false starts and one delay of game.

With two minutes left in the third quarter, Alfonzo Dennard was ejected from the game — along with Jeffery — after the two got into a pushing match that included some punches.

So one of your senior leaders, and one of the best players on the team, gets himself thrown out of his last game? Don't ask the coach. He's down on the sideline raging away, too.

Early in the fourth quarter, it was still 16-13, but the Gamecocks had a first down at the NU 11. South Carolina ran a play for a 2-yard gain, and during the play, it looked like a Gamecocks lineman had held Baker Steinkuhler and slammed him to the turf with a little extra mustard.

The Husker crowd booed. Pelini was incensed. He spent several minutes jawing at one of the officials. Meanwhile, South Carolina scored a touchdown on the very next play, a wide open short pass.

Three plays earlier, South Carolina had been called for holding. It's not like Nebraska was getting jobbed at the time. Where's the head coach's head?

ESPN jumped on Pelini, of course. The cameras were all over him. There were photos going around twitter of Pelini making faces. An ESPN announcer said it was Volcano Bo. Was it overdone? Maybe. Afterward, Pelini was composed and gracious — even a little teary-eyed — in the postgame press conference.

Too late. Pelini earned his reputation, and any recurrence is going to get blown up.

What's worse is that perception has become reality. Pelini's team looked undisciplined. And it's not hard to connect the dots to the sideline.

We haven't seen that Pelini often this year. And Nebraska has played better, been more disciplined, finished games. As offensive coordinator Tim Beck said, cutting down on penalties and turnovers was a focus this year. The Huskers were better in those areas.

But there's work to be done in key games. We saw it at Wisconsin. Saw it again at Michigan. And in a high-profile bowl against an SEC team, Nebraska couldn't get out of its way again.

"Execution — you can't do it for them," Pelini answered when asked what the coach could have done to stop the breakdowns. "You can't take a magic wand or something. You talk to them on the sidelines. You try to tell them to relax."

But when the coach is ranting at the refs, who's there to gather his composure? Yes, he has his team's back. But so does a coach who moves on to the next play.

One of the postgame themes was youth. As in, a lot of this happened because Nebraska's a young team. Not so fast. Two of the false starts were against senior Yoshi Hardrick. Dennard lost his cool. Martinez is in his second year.

Say this: there's a lot back on offense next season. As Beck noted, 17 of his top 22 return. There are a lot of weapons. And, given the loss of Lavonte David, Jared Crick and Dennard, the offense will have to carry the day.

"You've got to mature," Beck said. "They've got to grow up fast."

The player who needs to grow the most by next September is Martinez. He's made strides as a decision-maker and manager. But his passing is still a liability too often. And he's no longer the runner he used to be.

That's by design. But that needs to change. Martinez will never be a great passer, and he still takes too many Brett Favre-type risks.

But he can change a game with his legs. Quarterbacks who can hoof it drive defensive coordinators batty. The offense needs that element back.

Of course, coaches want to keep No. 3 healthy. Why? Because Nebraska has no quarterback depth, no able backup ready to go. It would be helpful, in more ways than one. When Martinez slips up, there's no fear of being benched.

Afterward, you saw Rex Burkhead grabbing teammates and filling their ears with encouragement. Rex will be a leader next year. But 2012 will be about Martinez and his growth chart. Better decisions, better play-making.

You hear some folks say Martinez will never lead the Big Red to a championship. Can he prove them wrong?

He can't do it alone. And that starts with the coaches. It's their job to get the players to execute. And the Huskers had cleaned some things up this year.

But what we saw Monday was an ugly flashback, back to Madison, and Ann Arbor. Back to Texas A&M 13 months ago. Forget stuck in neutral. What we saw Monday, with a month to prepare, was a jolt in reverse.

Two years ago, this program was charting upward. Last year, NU lost three of its last four. Now three losses in the last five this year.

The thing is, there's talent here to win the Big Ten next year. Nebraska stood up to a big, bad SEC team on Monday and felt it should have won. That says something. The scoreboard, of course, has the final say.

If Pelini and Co. clean it up, they can find themselves in roses a year from now. The smart money says they're likely to find their share of thorns.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com

twitter.com/tomshatelOWH

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• Video: NU coach Bo Pelini and I-back Rex Burkhead at the postgame press conference:



• Video: South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier at the postgame press conference:



• Video: Capital One Bowl game highlights:



• Video: Capital One Bowl postgame analysis with Jon Nyatawa:



• Video: Sights and sounds from Orlando, Fla.:

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