Tell me, Nebraska football fans, that you didn't ponder the following question as you watched Clemson beat Alabama earlier this month for all the marbles.
"It's hard to say. The closest we've played to that is probably against Ohio State," Luke Gifford, a starting outside linebacker on the Huskers' 2018 team, said last week on the Husker Extra podcast. "This year, I felt like we were ... not far. We're almost there."
That's open to discussion, of course. After all, Nebraska finished 4-8. In the first six games, the Husker defense allowed 38.3 points per game as the team went 0-6.