Act III: Will Nebraska finally have a November to remember?

The Huskers are 9-25 since 2014 in the final month of the season, but nothing lasts forever, even cold November pain?

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

At one point early in Bo Pelini’s Nebraska tenure I wrote something calling him “Mr. November.” I was also listening to a lot of The National¹ at the time, but the title was merited. Over his first three seasons, Pelini’s teams were 10-2 in November. That dropped upon entry into the Big Ten—11-6 over four seasons—but was still good enough to keep the Huskers at nine or more wins each season.

After that? Mike Riley went 4-7 in November. After going 2-2 in 2018, Scott Frost’s teams would win just three more November games (3-12) over four seasons. Think back to Halloween of last year. Matt Rhule’s first team was 5-3 with four games to go, all in tossup territory by the point spread. Nebraska went 0-4.

Since Pelini went 11-6 under the none-more-gray November skies of the Big Ten, the Huskers are 9-25 in the month. It’s hard to get anywhere doing that. The farthest it’s gotten Nebraska is to Nashville for the lone bowl game of the past nine seasons.

After post-spring previews of Acts I and II of the Huskers’ schedule, now we arrive at the end. Based on preseason SP+ ratings and a sum of inferred win probabilities, Nebraska projects for 5.8 wins over the first eight games.

Use that same method for the final four games—UCLA (Nov. 2), at USC (Nov. 16), Wisconsin (Nov. 23) and at Iowa (Nov. 26)—and you’re left with 1.5 wins in four November games. SP+ had all four opponents ranked ahead of Nebraska (39th) in its first projections of the season.

Will things actually play out that way six months from now? Probably not quite but Act III does look like the toughest part of the schedule on paper. It has been on the field for nearly a decade now in Lincoln.

Nothing changes until that changes.