This Rutgers loss to Nebraska is on Greg Schiano and his coaching staff | Politi

Finally, on a night when his team’s quarterback rotation looked like the work of a coaching staff that had gone stark raving mad, Greg Schiano had to come clean.

The Rutgers head coach had to tell his fan base what most of college football already knew — had known, in fact, for almost two months. Noah Vedral has suffered a hand injury. He can sometimes grip the football. He can’t grip it other times. If that sounds like a quarterback who, you know, shouldn’t be playing, then you didn’t watch the other guy.

Vedral started against Nebraska. Evan Simon replaced him. Vedral returned and Simon was back in. Simon was out there long enough to throw three interceptions, including one that set up Nebraska’s go-ahead touchdown. Simon also took a sack in the second quarter, which pushed the offense out-of-field goal range.

This is how you lose against a once-proud Big Ten rival that has basically spent the entire season handing out paper bags to its fans to wear around town.

Final score: Nebraska 14, Rutgers 13. Ugly doesn’t even begin to describe it. Fans were forgiven for wanting Kelsey Grammer to pretend to be Frasier crane in the second half. It can be difficult to find a good therapist.

“Everybody knows now, so I’ll announce: Noah has a hand injury,” Schiano said at his postgame press conference after a clearly hobbled Vedral completed six of 15 passes for 133 yards. “He had it repaired and he has healed. But his stamina isn’t what he needs to be yet.”

Schiano should have made this injury public weeks ago. The cloak-and-dagger nonsense fooled no one, and maybe if he explained the situation, his frustrated fans would have had more patience for the revolving door at the position they witnessed on Friday night.

It would have made the loss much easier to swallow. The Scarlet Knights led 13-0 at halftime, and it felt like they were going to lose this match if they handed the ball to the Cornhuskers.

Which — spoiler alert! — is exactly what they did.

Schiano should have seen enough of Simon in the first five quarters to know that the sophomore is a turnover-prone player. However, he still allowed the quarterback to drop back to pass on second down and 17 from the Rutgers 30-yard line in the fourth period. The Nebraska team won the game, and with Rutgers field position deep in Rutgers territory the Cornhuskers needed only one pass from Casey Thompson to take the lead.

Any was a better choice. Run twice to the line. All-world punter Adam Korsak will pin the Huskers deep. Let the defense win this game. Let Vedral throw with the LEFT hand. The Scarlet Knights won against a poor Nebraska team. In what has become a familiar scene, the visiting fans were the ones who danced at SHI Stadium.

Rutgers hasn’t won a Big Ten home game in almost five years, a streak that Schiano was quick to point out predates his return. He was the one who made Rutgers football a reality. He was the one who could provide the answers. This team, two and a half decades after his return, is still a frustrating mess every gameday.

“We have a very, very tight football team,” Schiano said. “I told them (that) the doubters will be out there; the people telling you, ‘You’re not good enough and you’re not going to win games and all those things.’ You can’t allow circumstance to dictate your behavior. ... I believe we have that strength of culture in our locker room.”

Does he have the right coaching staff? On Friday night's fourth quarter, Schiano fought with Sean Gleeson, the offensive coordinator. It is never wise to draw conclusions from heated in-game interactions — this is, after all, a high-stress environment — but it isn’t the first time the head coach has jawed at his play caller.

It is fair to wonder if Schiano will soon pin the offense’s struggles on Gleeson, the first $1 million assistant in Rutgers history.

Schiano said he had to “examine what we are doing” offensively during the bye week, because “certainly, something is not working.” Well, one thing was working — specifically, true freshman running back Samuel Brown, who looked like he might carry this team to victory himself. He had 63 yards on 16 carries, and that doesn’t include a 21-yard touchdown run erased by a holding call.

What did Rutgers do? You can't just give him the ball.

There are many frustrating things that can happen. Down a point with a four minutes to go, a personnel snafu forced Schiano to burn two timeouts on the same play — time-management malpractice. After Nebraska had thrown a short pass to Nebraska's sidelines that would have stopped time, Rutgers cornerback Kessawn Abraham was flagged with an unnecessary roughness penalty. He threw the Huskers receiver out-of-bounds. Despite the new set of downs, Nebraska still needed to punt, which only resulted in another Simon interception.

It was just one thing after the other. The bigger picture is that Rutgers lost an opportunity to kick a long-standing program while it was down. Nebraska isn’t Nebraska any more, but on this night, Rutgers was still Rutgers. That might sting, but it’s true.

Schiano is halfway through his third year. After Friday's loss, Schiano had to be honest about his messy quarterback situation. He won’t have to tell the fans that his team looks like it is headed in the wrong direction right now. They can see it with their own eyes.

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Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.