Don't expect Iowa to offer any discounts this Black Friday

Three keys and a prediction for the Huskers' trip to Iowa City.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Nebraska has a real shot to beat Iowa Friday, perhaps a better shot than a 4.5-point line would indicate.¹ I didn’t think that was the case in 2022, when the Huskers actually did beat the Hawkeyes to snap an eight-game losing streak. I didn’t think that in 2019, when 3-8 Nebraska was favored over 9-2 Iowa.²

But give Matt Rhule credit for this here at the end of his second regular season: Nebraska looks like a team that can do all of the mundane, menial tasks beating Iowa typically requires. That wasn’t the case for much of the previous 10 years where if the Hawkeyes were a standardized test, it often felt like the Huskers would show up 5 minutes late and without a pencil.

Doesn’t feel that way anymore. In fact, for much of 2024 Nebraska looked a little too much like Brian Ferentz-era Iowa with too-little offense spoiling consistently good to great defensive performances. Except Iowa was always better at that, too.

The Huskers finally won one with offense last week, which was encouraging but may or may not be of much help this week in a game that seems destined to be a slugfest. That’s still advantage Iowa, but at least we’ve seen Nebraska play, and win, a few of those over the past two seasons.

How does NU guarantee its first winning season since 2016? Let’s break it down.