A direct route to Year 3 highs might now require a detour

Nebraska's win over MSU was gritty, but did it highlight an issue that isn't going away in 2025?

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Maybe it was just a weird one in the wind. That’s the most generous, and perhaps most probable, explanation for Nebraska’s 38-27 win over Michigan State.

Late in the third quarter, having blown a 14-0 lead and trailing 21-14, it looked like the Huskers were close to a catastrophic loss. An improbable 46-yard reception from Jacory Barney Jr. on a third-and-10 flipped things, igniting a 24-0 Nebraska run before the Spartans tacked on a touchdown on the game’s final drive. Despite the double-digit margin, it was a coin-flip game that didn’t need to be and wasn’t expected to be.

“I think they are all going to be like that in the Big Ten,” Matt Rhule said. “I know I say it and everyone rolls their eyes at me, but like this is what every week is going to be like in the Big Ten now.”

No need for eye rolling. You can accept that as generally true about an 18-team, coast-to-coast league—I do—without allowing it to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for any uncomfortable result. In most ways, Nebraska’s win over Michigan State was less encouraging than its three-point loss to Michigan two weeks earlier.

That’s a sentiment full of contradictions. I understand it’s better to win ugly than lose pretty. The Huskers actually hit all three of the checkpoints I thought they’d need to hit to win by between 10 and 14 points, which is what they ended up doing.

But Saturday didn’t look or feel like a step forward for Nebraska, coming off a bye week with renewed focus and a reworked offensive line after allowing seven sacks to Michigan. If anything, it spotlighted what might be the central conflict for rest of the 2025 seasons: Is typical Year 3 Rhule magic more powerful than the Huskers inability to protect the passer through two Big Ten games?

Penn State’s loss at UCLA¹ was the most unlikely result in college football this week, but Nebraska allowing five sacks to Michigan State might’ve been second. The Spartans’ lack of a pass rush since the start of Jonathan Smith’s tenure as head coach in 2024 has been one of the chief concerns among MSU fans and media. Michigan State recorded zero sacks in six-of-nine Big Ten games a year ago and never topped three against a conference opponent. It had zero in two power-conference games this season, an overtime win over Boston College and a loss at USC.

If there was a pass rush Nebraska could’ve wanted to see after getting whipped by Michigan last time out, this was it and the Huskers let the Spartans look more like their in-state rival. The five sacks were the most at Michigan State since, well, it had seven against Nebraska in 2023. That was another anemic pass rush on what was then a 2-6 team under an interim head coach. That 2-6 team beat Nebraska, kicking off an unlikely four-game losing streak that kept the Huskers from bowl eligibility in Rhule’s first season

The Huskers knew they had everything to prove in this area after the Michigan game. They shuffled the tackles, with Alabama transfer Elijah Pritchett earning his first start at left tackle, which allowed Gunnar Gottula to move to right tackle, replacing Teddy Prochazka. To be clear, tackle play was far from the only issue Saturday. Nebraska missed blitz pickups and Dylan Raiola is still trying to find the optimum balance between making plays and taking plays that are there to avoid something worse.

None of that, I don’t think, had anything to do with the wind. Against an MSU pass defense that had mostly been shredded this season, Nebraska put up similar numbers to what Youngstown State managed against the Spartans in Week 3. Maybe chalk some of that up to the wind, but still not great when throwing the football² is the Huskers’ primary way to move the football.

Nebraska deserves credit for finding a way to win this game and make the score look close what was reasonable to expect. The defense did look like it had made the most of its week off. If you want to call this one “the game Mike Ekeler won,” I wouldn’t argue. Nebraska blocked a punt for a touchdown, recovered a fumble on kickoff coverage that led to a field goal and Barney had more than 80 punt return yards for the second time in the past four games.

The Huskers are 4-1, bottom line, and it’s possible the Michigan State win will just go down as a strange footnote to the seven games to come.

Or maybe it was evidence that wherever the Huskers are going in 2025 will have to include a pass-protection workaround from here on. That would be an unfortunate detour for what had previously been a direct route for previous Rhule teams in Year 3.

Odds & Ends

• Raiola’s 18.9 QBR against Michigan State was his lowest mark of the Dana Holgorsen era, including last year’s games. Raiola’s career low was 7.0 against Rutgers in 2023, followed by an 11.9 against UCLA. All three of those games were home games with double-digit wind speeds recorded at kickoff.

• At 14.8 yards per punt return, Barney currently ranks 13th nationally. His 13 returns are tied for fourth-most in the country.

• With three takeaways and one giveaway Saturday, Nebraska moved to +6 in turnover margin, tied for eighth nationally. Keep that up and it would be a pretty good (perhaps essential) workaround for any deficiencies elsewhere.

• The Huskers hit the road this week for the first true road game of the season, and it’ll be interesting to see where 4-1 Maryland’s at after blowing a 20-0 lead to lose 24-20 to Washington in front of the Terrapins’ first sellout crowd in two years. Circa Sports opened the game at Nebraska -4. The updated FPI rankings would make the Huskers about a 6-point favorite, SP+ would have NU by about 3.

• At +7 on the year, Maryland is tied for fifth nationally in turnover margin.

1. Rhule asked the assembled media, mid-answer at this postgame press conference if Penn State had lost to UCLA, which was interesting. It did help support his point about the Big Ten being a week-to-week league.

2. This brings up another bye-week curiosity. After much talk about the need to find a second running back behind Emmett Johnson, Nebraska gave one carry to Mekhi Nelson (11 yards) and three to Isaiah Mozee (9 yards). Johnson had a solid day with 83 yards on 13 carries. He was also Nebraska’s most-targeted receiver with eight.