The Nebraska football team has snapped a streak that had been running since 1963. What has been an era that has seen more than a few negative records set has seen another negative piece of history made. The Huskers were shut out in the 2019 NFL draft.

It was the first time the team had gone an entire draft without a single player being taken in over 40 years, and the team had been flirting with this record for the last few years. Tanner Lee and Nate Gerry managed to allow Nebraska to skirt that record for one more year in each of the 2017 and 2018 drafts.

Both players were chosen late enough that there was a bit of a worry that the streak might be ending. Now it actually has. While no one expected the Huskers to have first or second round picks, there were thoughts that both running back Devine Ozigbo and wide receiver Stanley Morgan Jr had done enough in workouts leading up to the draft that they had shown NFL teams they could play at the next level.

If players were convinced of that, they were also convinced no one was going to take them and that they would be available to be signed after the draft. It's a safe bet they will indeed sign contracts. Both are good enough that they will pick up a team eventually. It's still a bit of a surprise neither was given a call this weekend.

Nebraska football players get the cold shoulder

Not only has the streak come and gone, but there's a level of embarrassment that comes along with not getting draft. In the seventh round alone, players from South Dakota State, North Carolina A&T, James Madison and Prairie View A&M were selected.

Watching FCS players get drafted ahead of them had to make both Ozigbo and Morgan shake their heads a bit.

Plenty of running backs and wide receivers were selected as well. Still, no one came calling for the Nebraska players.

Poor seasons lead to poor draft results

As more than a few people pointed out, it appears the rather poor performances of the last few years were indeed because of a total lack of real, top-tier talent. Back-to-back 4-8 seasons were largely waved away as either being because of the coaching staff didn't know what they were doing, or because the program was learning the ways of a brand new staff.

Now it appears as though at least one of the reasons the team went 8-16 in its last two seasons is because there just weren't enough players on the roster that were at the level that was worthy of being drafted. In hindsight, it shouldn't come as anything close to a surprise that this was the year the streak finally ended. The problem is that no one wants to have this kind of streak on their record. The Nebraska football team will look to jumpstart a new streak in 2020 but for now, yet another negative piece of history has been made.
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