Friday Five: Rhule hits the lanes and the Huskers keep rolling
Matt Rhule spent his Wednesday night doing something a little different for a Power Four head coach in mid-November: he went bowling.
Matt Rhule spent his Wednesday night doing something a little different for a Power Four head coach in mid-November: he went bowling.
Literally.
Nebraska bowling — with an assist from Rhule — took on Nebraska football in a Baker best-of-seven and swept athletic director Troy Dannen, Marques Buford Jr., DeShon Singleton and Keelan Smith. The “coaches + bowlers” squad jumped out fast, taking the first four games 161–122, 190–91, 214–155 and 161–119.
That wasn’t all that happened this week, of course. Men’s and women’s basketball both moved to 3-0. Volleyball is headed to California with a perfect record and cartoonish numbers. Football picked up a couple more Big Ten awards. And Wednesday’s signing period turned into a full-day roll call across nearly every sport on campus.
Let’s get into it, shall we?1
Nebraska-Oklahoma, Part 100-and-something
Fred Hoiberg’s team finally leaves home this weekend, but it won’t feel like a true road game. Nebraska men’s basketball heads to a sold-out Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls to renew a very old rivalry with Oklahoma on Saturday night (6 p.m. CT on BTN).
The Huskers are 3-0 after a 69-50 win over Maryland-Eastern Shore. Nebraska held the Hawks to 31% shooting, forced 16 turnovers and, for almost 12 minutes, allowed just two made shots while building a 31-point cushion. Sam Hoiberg put together the best game of his career — 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting, seven boards, four steals, four assists and zero turnovers — while Pryce Sandfort quietly led all scorers with 19.
Oklahoma comes into the matchup 2-1, averaging 88.3 points on 49% shooting, with guard Xzayvier Brown posting 18.7 points per game and fellow transfer Nijel Pack right behind at 16.3. Porter Moser has rebuilt his roster with size and experienced scorers, and the Sooners have stacked back-to-back 20-win seasons and an NCAA Tournament trip.
Nebraska enters on a seven-game win streak dating back to last year, which just so happens to be the longest active streak in the country. Win No. 8 would give Hoiberg his longest run in Lincoln and another neutral-site resume piece before the Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City next week.
The Pentagon has treated Nebraska well (2-1 all-time) and it should be painted heavy red again with the women playing North Dakota State there on Sunday.
“We’re happy it’s a red state again.”
If you’ve followed Nebraska-Creighton women’s basketball the last decade, you know the math hasn’t been kind to the Huskers. Creighton had won eight of the last nine in the series and three straight overall.
Wednesday night at Pinnacle Bank Arena, Nebraska flipped all of that in 40 minutes.
The Huskers throttled the Bluejays 84-50, moving to 3-0 and reclaiming some control in the rivalry. Nebraska’s defense set the tone from the jump and then slammed the door in the second quarter. Creighton managed just five points in that frame, shot 8% from the field and turned it over nine times. Twins Neleigh and Norah Gessert were the only Jays to score in the period.
The game’s signature moment came at the end of the first quarter. With two seconds on the clock and Creighton’s turnover bouncing her way, Jessica Petrie took one dribble and launched from around 60 feet. And as you guessed it, the shot went in.
Pinnacle Bank exploded, Nebraska went up 17–9 and the night never really settled down from there.
“I honestly wasn’t thinking,” Petrie said. “It wasn’t really the play, but I was just open for my teammates and threw a Hail Mary, and it went in. It’s an Aussie thing.”
Nebraska led by 28 after three quarters and never let the advantage dip below the low-30s in the fourth.
Britt Prince led with 18 points and seven rebounds, Callin Hake added 13 and both Petrie and Claire Johnson finished with 11.
“I wasn’t going to leave Nebraska without beating Creighton, and that was definitely on my mind tonight,” Hake said. “We’re happy it’s a red state again.”
The celebration was deserved, but the schedule doesn’t wait. Nebraska heads to the Sanford Pentagon on Sunday to face North Dakota State at noon on BTN, part of a hoops-heavy weekend in Sioux Falls for the Huskers.
Volleyball takes its undefeated act to LA
The top-ranked Huskers are 24-0 and making it look easier than it should be. Now they get a West Coast test at UCLA on Friday night in Pauley Pavilion and at No. 17 USC on Sunday afternoon in a sold-out Galen Center.
The numbers are absurd, even by Nebraska standards:
24-0 overall with win streaks of 27, 25 and now 24 over the last three seasons.
Fifteen straight sweeps and 46 consecutive sets won, the longest run since 2007.
Hitting .348 as a team, best in the nation, while holding opponents to .122 (also No. 1 nationally). The gap between what Nebraska hits and what opponents hit (.226) is by far the biggest in Division I.
Top-six nationally in kills, assists and blocks per set.
UCLA comes in 14-10 and 8-6 in the Big Ten with outside hitter Cheridyn Leverette carrying a 3.69 kills-per-set load and libero Lola Schumacher leading the league in digs. USC sits at 19-5 and 10-4 in conference play, riding an eight-match win streak and ranking top-20 nationally in blocks per set.
Nebraska is 14-5 all-time against UCLA and has won five straight. USC leads that series 7-3 but the Huskers have taken the last two.
Put simply: it’s a big-brand weekend and Nebraska has a chance to keep stretching an undefeated season that has already drifted into “historic” territory.
Johnson, Lateef collect hardware and rewrite the record book
Emmett Johnson was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week after a 232-yard explosion against UCLA that looked like something out of a video game: 129 rushing yards on 28 carries, 103 receiving yards on three catches and three total touchdowns. He became the first running back in program history to top 100 rushing and 100 receiving yards in the same game and the first Big Ten player in at least 30 years to put together 125+ rushing, 100+ receiving, a rushing score and two receiving touchdowns in one outing.
Johnson’s two touchdown grabs — from 56 and 50 yards — tied the Nebraska single-game record for touchdown receptions by a running back. He’s the first Husker to win the league’s offensive weekly award since Anthony Grant in 2022.
TJ Lateef shared Big Ten Freshman of the Week and added Manning Award “Star of the Week” honors after his first collegiate start doubled as a homecoming. The Compton native completed 13-of-15 passes for 205 yards and three touchdowns, hit his first 11 attempts and added 31 rushing yards on five carries. He led touchdowns on Nebraska’s first four possessions and guided the Huskers to their first win at UCLA since 1992.
Lateef is just the fifth true freshman to start at quarterback for Nebraska since 1950, and his efficiency put him in his own statistical lane: he’s believed to be the first true freshman in FBS since at least 1995 with a game that included at least 15 attempts with fewer than two incompletions, 200-plus passing yards, three or more passing touchdowns and 30-plus rushing yards.
Signing day: a campus-wide talent influx
Wednesday was a big day for a lot of sports on Nebraska’s campus.
Volleyball added three 2026 early enrollees — outside hitter Gabby DiVita, pin Jayden Robinson and middle Keoni Williams — and all three are firmly in the “elite national prospect” category. DiVita, from Michigan’s Legacy club (same as Harper Murray and Campbell Flynn), is a six-rotation outside who has piled up more than 2,000 career kills and 1,100 digs. Robinson, a U.S. youth national team standout, brings serious physicality on the pins and back-row attacking. Williams is one of the top middles in the class, with international experience and a .553 senior-year hitting percentage that looks very on-brand for what Nebraska asks of its middles.
Women’s basketball signed three top-100 recruits in forward Ashlyn Koupal and guards Ava Miles and Maddi Stewart. Koupal is a five-star, multi-sport star from South Dakota and one of the highest-ranked commits in program history. Miles is an energetic playmaker out of Kansas City who can score and facilitate, and Stewart arrives from Oklahoma as a championship-tested guard and the daughter of a coach.
“Ashlyn, Ava and Maddi each bring the skills, intelligence, character and work ethic to thrive as Huskers and will be instrumental in helping us continue to raise the bar in our program,” Williams said.
Men’s basketball made its fall additions official with four-star forward Colin Rice and four-star guard Jacob Lanier, both top-100 prospects who check Hoiberg’s boxes for shooting, size and playmaking. Soccer announced a seven-player class heavy on attacking talent and featuring two Canadian youth internationals.
Gymnastics went global, signing five athletes — Hayden Anderton, Natalie Burns, Aaliyah De Sousa, Dana Khalil and Brooke Striga — with resumes that stretch from Level 10 nationals to Canadian and Egyptian national teams. Rifle added Makenzie Larson and Kenly Downey, both already decorated on the national junior scene. Softball’s seven-player class brings a little bit of everything: a homegrown pitcher in Cali Bentz, high-level infielders and outfield speed that fits right into how Rhonda Revelle wants to play. Tennis landed five-star Floridian Katie Spencer, the highest-ranked high school recruit Nebraska has ever signed in the sport (#33 nationally, previously as high as #11).
And in a very appropriate bookend to the week, Nebraska bowling signed Taylor Kretz — a Junior Team USA member and the program’s first two-handed player — along with 2024 national high school champion Maggie Porter. The No. 2 team in the country just got a little deeper and a little more diverse in how it can line up.
So yes, the head football coach went bowling on a Wednesday night and helped sweep the AD and a few defensive backs. Why not, you know? It’s best to enjoy the bye week.
After all, the stretch run is about to get busy again. We’ll see how long this roll lasts. For now, it’s fair to say the pins are set up about as well as they’ve been in a while.
This is also a really long newsletter. I would apologize, but there’s also no game day guide this week so I figured more is better in this case. Worth noting this ended up around 1,700 works, but it started closer to 2,500. Proof I can edit myself!
I started my morning looking at the long range forecast for Black Friday's game and it's going to be a cold 🥶🥶🥶 day. If you have battery powered clothes, you're going to need them. Then I reread this article because it really is impressive; both the writing and the subject. Thank you for listening to my Craig talk.
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