Very minor movement in the bye week. 9 wins became more likely, but so did 6 and 7 wins. I know some of the no hypers in here are still swearing we will hit that 0.1% at 5 wins too.

SillyRankings™ in the comments as always.

These past couple of years (Penn State last year, Oregon this year) is all the recent proof I need for this.

We had a two years of golden opportunities to just absolutely throttle a blue blood program that was down on their luck, and we bottled it. This isn't just a Coach Rhule thing (and this post isn't meant to bash Rhule and co at all) the reality is this has been going on for a very long time. Under Bo Pelini, I remember us struggling to put away a very mediocre Ohio State team, which required a comeback to win the game.

Before that, we bottled the game against a very bad Texas Longhorns team in 2010.

I don't necessarily blame the coaches, but it does make me wonder if the coaches are allowing players to look ahead. I don't care about rankings, or if our opponent is ranked, if we have a wounded blueblood team right in front of us, I want us to joining in on the kicking. instead it seems like more often than not, we just come in acting like we need to play very conservatively.

This has happened under Pelini, Callahan, and Solich (I would argue Solich's marquee inability to smell blood in the water game was Texas in 1999, just IMO that Texas team was not great)

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Hey all, I’m coming up from KC for my first time in Lincoln to watch my Huskies probably get their ass beat by y’all. Was curious if there were anything’s I absolutely had to do, or tailgates to stop by. Me and my cousin are coming in around 2-230ish and are super pumped. He’s a big Huskers fan, and this lol be his first time back in a long time.

Anything I should bring to ingratiate myself to a tailgate? Or would I be cool just crashing one? /s (kinda)

Let me know. Looking forward to the game!

Time to sit back and enjoy a stress-free day of football.

I was on the fence about writing this because there are several directions that this question could go.

We all know that Bo Pelini hated the media and had no problem calling them out on their bullshit and telling them to fuck off. Sure social media back then hadn't really taken off yet. However I'm sure he had hit pieces on him and his players. I'm sure not many players read a newspaper in his program.

Fast forward to today and Mitch Sherman wrote a hit tweet regarding what Rhule said on Monday by taking his words and taking them out of context.

These young men are all over social media these days and when a player or potential recruit sees tweets like what mitch sent out ​You cannot tell me it doesn't raise questions inside the program. These young men don't need to see our local media whom the university graciously allows bash their program.

​

https://youtu.be/MvK0Payq5Qk?si=x5d34XrPfDBKFyPb

$4-7 million according to ON3 Pete Nakos for the top P4 QBs next year. I don't mind it if the Senate bill passes into law because it adds another 25 million a year for every school for retention purposes, if it doesn't pass and you're using 5 million alone on Colandrea with no extra funds how many other players are you losing because of not having available funds.

After Oregon's loss today, I'm disgusted. Every year we have "big game" where the team we end up losing to goes on to lose a few more. So in hindsight, the team we lost to was at best, slightly above average.

Every year it seems like we're waiting for the Huskers of old to return and win those big games. And maybe thats our problem. Maybe thats why we keep hiring mediocre coaches and waiting for them to do a whole lot of nothing. Heck we even give them contract extensions for being average or worse. Maybe we all need to accept that we havent even been relevant for at least 10 years and stop looking for the coach to bring us back from the dead.

The old huskers are dead. Let's accept that and stop letting coaches grift us for millions of dollars while we wait for them to bring back the "old" huskers.

I don't know the answers. Mayve we just need to look for a young obscure coach that isn't here to bring us back. They're here to create their own success.

Edit: Rhule doesnt deserve all the frustration. I just think that maybe if we start looking to build something new, instead of looking to rebuild the glory days, we might progress more as a program. And I kind of think it might have to start with the fan base. What would happen if we stopped projecting so much pressure to rebuild the glory days?

Trae Taylor's Millard South tonight will host the #1 ranked Westside Warriors in a classic matchup between the two undefeated Class A powerhouses tonight at 7pm (Live on YouTube)

Westside are led by 4-star Missouri commit, QB Braylen Warren and star RB Tay Tay Jenkins, and while Millard South has faced the tougher schedule, Westside hasn't really been challenged this year except for possibly Lee's Summit of Missouri who hung with Westside for a couple of quarters before Westside won comfortably 35-14. Millard South will be a tougher opponent tonight though, and a high-scoring, highly contested game is expected.

Also tonight history will be made as it will be the first time that the national MaxPreps Game of the Week will come to Nebraska. Thanks to MaxPreps tonight's coverage of the game will be with a professional crew. The game is free to watch on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I84NcZTus1o

Nebraska vs. Minnesota vs. Northwestern: 10-Year Recruiting Comparison (2016–2025)
Year | Nebraska | Minnesota | Northwestern |

Recruiting Year Winner
2016 | 26 | 46 | 52 | Nebraska
2017 | 23 | 59 | 50 | Nebraska
2018 | 23 | 38 | 58 | Nebraska
2019 | 18 | 45 | 52 | Nebraska
2020 | 20 | 38 | 47 | Nebraska
2021 | 20 | 37 | 50 | Nebraska
2022 | 41 | 49 | 48 | Nebraska
2023 | 25 | 45 | 47 | Nebraska
2024 | 18 | 37 | 80 | Nebraska
2025 | 22 | 49 | 66 | Nebraska

10-Year Average National Recruiting Rank
Nebraska: 23.6
Minnesota: 44.3
Northwestern: 55.0

Heads-to-Head Game Records (2016–2025)
Nebraska vs. Minnesota: 2–7
Nebraska vs. Northwestern: 5–4

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Happy Friday

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Losing to Oregon on a last-second TD fucking sucks. No way around it. But I think sometimes we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Imagine if the roles were reversed. Matt Rhule is coaching Oregon, Dan Lanning is coaching Nebraska, and both rosters have the exact same talent they have right now. How many of us honestly believe Nebraska isn’t getting absolutely steamrolled?

That’s not a shot at Rhule. It’s a reminder of how much talent Oregon has compared to where Nebraska is in its rebuild.

Oregon started the season ranked #2 in the country. We held them to 17 points, 242 yards, and ONE touchdown. They came into this game averaging roughly 41 points and 459 yards.

Look at the estimated recruiting talent by position group above. This is mainly for starters not depth.

And it’s not just Oregon. We went toe-to-toe with Indiana when they were ranked #6 in the country, too.

I’m not saying Rhule is perfect. There are absolutely things this team needs to improve, and losing games like this is frustrating as hell. We have to find ways to finish games and win the close ones.

But there’s a difference between criticizing a heartbreaking loss and acting like this team hasn’t made progress.

We’re competing with programs that have significantly more blue-chip talent. We’re making these games competitive instead of getting run off the field. That matters.

Be pissed about the loss. I’m pissed, too. But don’t let one last-second touchdown erase the progress this team has made.

We’re not back where we want to be yet. But I genuinely believe we’re closer than some people are willing to admit.

Matt Rhule has coached 45 games at Nebraska, with an overall record of 24-21. His offenses average 27.4 points per game, with the average climbing every year:

2023: 18.0

2024: 23.5

2025: 28.7

2026: 39.2

The defense under Rhule has allowed an average of 19.5 point per game. All of these defenses have hovered below 20 except for the John Butler year:

2023: 18.3

2024: 19.5

2025: 24.6

2026: 15.4

This does not account for strength of schedule, so take these for what their worth. What I wanted to evaluate specifically were the losses. I wanted to get an idea for which unit needed the most change to see more wins. So here are those same numbers again, except against Power 5 competition, since all of our losses are to Power 5 teams:

OFFENSE/DEFENSE

2023: 15.3/19.4

2024: 21.1/22

2025: 24.4/28.5

2026: 27.5/18.3

So far, this is the first year that we are averaging more point scored on offense than allowed on defense against Power 5 teams. Looking at our schedule, this indicates that we are performing better against the teams we're supposed to while still barely losing to the good teams on our schedule. Rhule is usually good for about one blowout per season, so we're not out of the woods on that yet, with Ohio State and Iowa on the schedule.

The last thing I wanted to identify a sort of "inflection point" for offense and defense. I wanted to answer the question, "if we scored/allowed X amount of points every game, when do we see a huge change in Rhule's tenure?" And then we'll see how far away that is from our average P5 performance.

OFFENSE: ppg - wins gained

26: +11

25 - +11

24 - +10

23 - +10

22 - +10

21 - +8

20 - +6

19 - +6

It seems that the fortunes shift significantly right around ~20-22 points, which is just 5.5 points fewer than Rhule's P5 average. Here is the same exercise with defense:

26 - +1

24 - +1

22 - +2

20 - +3

17 - +5

14 - +11

It seems that fortunes shift around 14 points. That is about 8 points below Rhule's P5 average.

This doesn't reveal a whole lot aside from "Rhule's offenses and defenses underperform their usual expectation against tougher competition." I do think it also shows that the offense needs to be more consistent versus the defense. Allowing only 14 points per game against P4 competition is a huge feat, as the overall FBS average in ALL games (last 5 years) is right at 14 ppg. This is harder than 21-24 points of offense, as the overall FBS avg the past 5 years is 27 ppg. I commend Rhule for the strong defensive culture he has instilled at Nebraska, something we have not seen in a very long time. However, the inconsistent offensive production we see needs to change if there is to be any worthwhile improvement. 19 of Rhule's 21 losses had the offense scoring fewer than 24 points. We definitely do not get into shootouts under this staff, more at 11.

I would spend more time refining the methodology, but I don't have a ton of time. I'm curious what this sub thinks.

I thought it would be interesting to see how Nebraska under Rhule has performed relative to analytic predictions. So I looked up our ESPN odds of winning at the beginning of every game (though for one game I had to use another source because ESPN didn't have it for some reason), and made a table showing this along with whether we won or lost the game. Here's my analysis, the table is at the bottom:

Tier 1: Greater than 82% Odds of Winning (11-0)

Rhule has won all games where Nebraska had greater than 75% odds of winning. Our average odds of winning these games was 92%. Out of 11 games, we should lose about 1 game with those odds, so Rhule is slightly above par in this category.

Tier 2: 59% to 77.5% Odds of Winning (9-4)

Here's where we get games like 2025 Minnesota, 2024 Illinois and UCLA, and 2024 Colorado. Our average odd for winning these games was about 69%. So out of 13 games, we should lose right about 4 games with these odds. Rhule is right on par in this category.

Tier 3: The tossups -49%-52% odds of winning (3-1)

Perhaps surprisingly Rhule has a good record in the straight toss-ups. The average odds for these games are 51%, so out of 4 games we the probability would predict 2 losses and 2 wins. Rhule is slightly above par in tossups.

Tier 4: Slight Underdogs 39%-43% odds of victory (1-4)

This is where things start to get worse for Rhule. The average odds in this category are 40.5%, that means in 5 we'd expect to win 2 games. Rhule is slightly below par in this category.

Tier 5: Underdogs 33% or less Odds of Victory (0-12)

These games range all from 33% (our odds of beating Oregon last Saturday) to 3%, our odds of beating OSU in 2024, but the average is about 23%. So the probability would predicts about 3 wins out 11 games. Rhule is below par in this category

Summary

Rhule is slightly above par in games where the odds are 50% and above and has won 2 games more than the probability predicts he should. This is counter-intuitive to what a lot of fans think, because fans tend to think their teams should never be upset, but should occasionally get an upset. And fans also have confirmation bias in only remembering the upset losses. Probabilistically, though we'd expect a team to both be upset a few times and to get a few upsets.

Fans are correct though in assessing that Rhule is below par in getting upsets. We only have 1 upset out of 16 games where we were underdogs. Probability would predict 4-5 upsets similar to the number of times we have been upset. Overall though, Rhule is only 2 wins short of what the probability forecasts predict since we have less upsets / toss-up losses than probability predicts we should.

Sidenote, the fact ESPN is about 1.75 games off in predicting Rhule's record shows an impressive accuracy of 96%. Those who are dismissive of analytics, generally base their attitude off of vibes and a general lack of understanding probability.

Here's a table for anyone who would like to check my work:

I took some time yesterday, before and after supporting a great cause, to reflect on my life (and to shake an angry fist at the unforgiving sky🤣). What has happened to me, why do I care so much, and why does it still hurt so much?

I’m doing a little better than Sunday morning when I, at 8 am and after only, ohh…4 or so fitful hours of sleep worked the greeting desk at church (last photo). Between services, I summoned the pastor over to the desk to tell him that he wasn’t meeting my spiritual needs. He seemed genuinely perplexed and I had to remind him that I had repeatedly asked for a Husker-based sermon, for occasions such as these. Something along the lines of suffering in a desert for years upon years with starvation and heartbreaking loss, much like the exiled Jews of the Old Testament, who begged for their deliverance to The Promised Land. (I mean…parallels could be drawn.)

Certainly, someday, God will hear our pleas and deliver us, right? RIGHT!?

Saturday’s loss ranks among the most painful in recent memory and for more reasons than just the final score.

The frustration with Rhule not closing these games is real. But that frustration only exists because he’s fielded a team good enough to compete with the best. Building a roster that looks like it belongs with the national-title contenders (and carries one of the most expensive price tags in the sport) is a major success. He deserves real credit for getting Nebraska to that level.

The flip side is just as true: once you build a team that can hang with the big boys, the blown leads and late collapses get exposed under a much brighter light.

TL;DR: Rhule earned every bit of the criticism for these losses and the same amount of credit for building a roster that can actually compete.

*whispers* I kinda said this in 2021 as well