Friday Five: Playing up, playing down and putting on a show
We’re two weeks into the football season and three into volleyball, and already there’s plenty to talk about.
We’re two weeks into the football season and three into volleyball, and already there’s plenty to talk about. Matt Rhule has been here before: coaching as the favorite, coaching as the underdog, sometimes within the span of two weeks. Nebraska is about to step back into Memorial Stadium with Akron coming to town.
Meanwhile, volleyball just polished off another top-10 win and set viewership records doing it.
Let’s get to it.
Rhule knows the underdog script which is why Akron makes him nervous
When Rhule talks about underdogs, he isn’t guessing. He lived it at Temple, when early schedules featured Notre Dame, Penn State, Louisville and Cincinnati. His teams were rarely expected to win but they were dangerous.
That’s the role Akron plays this weekend in Lincoln. The Zips opened the year with a 10–0 loss and arrive in Lincoln as a five-touchdown underdog. For Nebraska fans, it looks straightforward. For Rhule, it’s exactly the sort of game that keeps him on edge.
“You really have nothing in the world to lose and everything in the world to gain,” he said on Thursday. “And you have a bunch of players on your team who believe that they should be playing at the highest level and know they’re good players.”
Akron’s offense is coordinated by head coach Joe Moorhead. Rhule knows him well. Maybe too well. In 2013, Moorhead’s Fordham squad beat Rhule’s Temple team, a loss Rhule still calls one of the worst moments of his coaching career. Now Moorhead brings creative wrinkles and an aggressive blitz package to Lincoln.
Rhule’s worry isn’t just Akron. It’s Nebraska’s history of letting opponents dictate the terms. Last fall, the Huskers nearly upset Ohio State in Columbus, then stumbled the next week against a struggling UCLA team. Even wins had warning signs: Northern Iowa held the ball for 38 minutes in a 34–3 Husker win, a lack of urgency that bled into the following week’s loss at Illinois.
“We don’t ever want to play the brand, we want to play the man,” Rhule said. “That’s something we were not great at last year.”
Akron may be overmatched on paper but Nebraska has been burned enough to know better.
Recruiting weekends look different with the facilities to show off
Saturday also doubles as Nebraska’s first big recruiting weekend of the season. It’s the first time the Osborne Legacy Complex will serve as the backdrop to a Memorial Stadium game day. Last year, Rhule and staff were still giving hard-hat tours.
Now they can point to the real thing.
“This is the first year we've actually had the building for recruiting,” Rhule said. “Walking guys through concrete with hard hats does not wow them in recruiting. Showing them pictures does not wow them. You actually have to go into the building and see it.”
The summer already provided some dry runs with 7-on-7 tournaments and other visits, but this weekend is different. Prospects from the class of 2026 all the way down to middle-schoolers in the 2029 and 2030 classes will be on hand. Yes, even eighth graders.
“We have some of the best players in the country coming to visit,” he said. “I will always remind everyone, though, my goal is not to recruit the best recruits; my goal is to recruit the best players and there's a big difference to me.”
That philosophy drives how Nebraska evaluates. Work ethic, football IQ and cultural fit matter as much as stars. It’s why a prospect like Omaha Westside’s Camden Berry already has an offer heading into his freshman year of high school and why Georgia quarterback CJ Cypher received one before starting ninth grade.
Commits from quarterback Dayton Raiola, linebacker Jase Reynolds, quarterback Trae Taylor and safety Tory Pittman III will also be in town. Add in the chance to showcase a “world-class facility,” as Rhule calls it, and Nebraska has more than just a game against Akron to sell.
Left tackle clarity, at least for now
Nebraska rotated three players at left tackle against Cincinnati but as Week 2 approaches, Rhule has already announced this week’s starter against Akron: Gunnar Gottula.
“Yeah. Gunnar will start,” Rhule confirmed Thursday.
Offensive line coach Donovan Raiola had a crowded competition on his hands with multiple players bringing starting experience, but Gottula now gets first crack at locking the job down for good.
The staff had plenty of film to study after rotating Gottula, Turner Corcoran and Elijah Pritchett across 78 offensive snaps against Cincinnati. Pritchett logged the most plays and showed flashes, but a sack allowed and a false start at the one-yard line undercut his case. Corcoran was steadier but less impactful. Gottula played the fewest snaps but he was clean. He had no penalties, one hurry and a solid performance that evidently gave the coaches confidence.
The rotation may not be finished long term, but the starting nod signals trust in Gottula heading into Saturday.
Volleyball keeps rolling and keeps its edge
Nebraska is 4–0 with three victories over top-10 teams, capped by a reverse sweep of Kentucky that showcased both the team’s depth and its coach’s willingness to gamble.
Dani Busboom Kelly wasn’t afraid to shuffle her lineup mid-match. Down 0–2 to the Wildcats, she swapped in Olivia Mauch at libero and gave Virginia Adriano extended run at opposite. It wasn’t about one player struggling. It was about jump-starting the whole group.
“We were not playing well,” Busboom Kelly said. “And it’s like we have this great bench and so let’s make some changes and see if that gives us any momentum.”
The changes worked. Nebraska clawed back to win in five, with Harper Murray delivering a career-high 23 kills to go with 15 digs. Adriano chipped in key blocks, while Rebekah Allick and Andi Jackson steadied the middle.
“We’re just lucky that we have that deep of a roster and we’re able to make changes like that because not a lot of schools can do that,” Murray said afterward.
Now Nebraska finally returns home to the Devaney Center, where Wright State and California await this weekend. The matchups may not carry the same top-10 flair, but both provide opportunities for Nebraska to refine its passing and serving before Big Ten play begins.
Ratings records follow the Huskers
If the Kentucky match felt like a big deal, the numbers back it up. Nebraska’s five-set win over the Wildcats drew 1.2 million viewers on ABC, making it the most-watched regular season volleyball match ever on any ESPN platform.
It nearly doubled the audience from Nebraska’s sweep of Stanford the week before, which had already set the ESPN record. For context, 771,000 watched the opener against Pitt on FOX. The appetite for Husker volleyball—and women’s sports in general—isn’t slowing down.
More people have tuned in for postseason matches—1.7 million watched the 2023 national championship against Texas—but the regular-season ceiling keeps rising. That says as much about Nebraska’s national profile as it does about the sport’s growth. Big matches, especially those involving the Huskers, continue to draw big numbers.
Another week has come and gone. We’ll be back tomorrow with a game day guide for Nebraska football, and a game day chat to boot.
As for the outcome—for both football and volleyball—we’ll dive in further next week like we always do.
Thanks for being here.