Metaphorically speaking
The perception of progress is probably on the line as Nebraska prepares for the final two games of the regular season.
Shortly after Penn State kicked off against Michigan State Saturday, Nebraska posted one of its typically well-made videos to Instagram with the caption “It’s about us.” Maybe the timing was intentional, maybe it wasn’t, but I’m certain it’s a message we’ll often hear this week as Husker head coach Matt Rhule returns to his alma mater.
Nebraska’s extension of Rhule at the end of October, effectively eliminating him as a potential candidate for Penn State’s coaching vacancy, removed the most awkward angle from this matchup, but there are still plenty of pat storylines—returning home, spurning home, home maybe not torn up about it but still wanting to show anyone should want to be there, etc.
“It’s about us,” is a quick way to address all of that from the Nebraska side.
On the Penn State side, I expect the focus to be on reaching a bowl after snapping a six-game losing streak with Saturday’s 28-10 win over the Spartans. The Nittany Lions need a win on Senior Day1 against Nebraska and then another the following week at Rutgers. The stakes are clear in State College.
In Lincoln, they’re plenty high but a little bit murkier. The next two games likely determine how the 2025 season is summed up. Was it two steps forward? One step? A half-step? Such determinations are subjective, maybe bordering on metaphorical,2 but the perception gap between 7-5 and 9-3 (and maybe even 8-4) is large.
The Huskers will have to earn any gains over the next two weeks. Penn State was a 10-point favorite on the opening line from Circa Sports on Sunday, and the power ratings point to Iowa being favored by a couple of points in Lincoln on Black Friday.
Nobody said progress was easy. At the start of the year, it wasn’t hard to look at the schedule and project Penn State as the biggest favorite the Huskers would face all season. Now it’s surprising that’s how it will play out. Nebraska was favored in its first eight games this season and was only a slight underdog to USC and UCLA. Given all that’s happened this season—PSU losing three straight and firing James Franklin, losing three straight after that, starting a backup QB against Nebraska’s backup QB—10 points feels a little steep for a 4-6 team facing a 7-3 team.
Unless the records are just metaphors. I’m not quite ready to put hypothetical money down on a hypothetical bet nobody’s offering, but I’m close to betting that a year from now the Huskers’ loss to Minnesota will be viewed as turning point (to the good) for Nebraska.
I’m almost ready to do that. Ask me again Sunday when we’ve seen how the Huskers did as the biggest underdog of the year in a lighter-but-still-weighty environment.
The company NU keeps
Rhule said last week that 7-3 is not where Nebraska wants to be, but as I watched games Saturday and saw teams reach (or, in some cases, fall to) that record, I realized the Huskers are in an interesting cohort. You’ve got surprising power-conference teams sitting at 7-3 right now, to the good (Wake Forest) and the bad (Texas). Arizona has clawed its way there, in part by beating Cincinnati last week, which has slipped there after a 7-1 start.
I’m always nose-deep in power ratings and what not, so this is a simple attempt to zoom way out. The Huskers are 7-3, what other teams are there? As reference points, I’m also including the teams’ preseason win totals and their second-order wins, a Bill Connelly number that is a sum of postgame win probabilities and meant to show how closely actual win totals align with the stats they’ve put up.
I’m not sure that changes the progress discussion much for Nebraska, but my reaction to looking at the complete list was “not bad,” a sentiment that’s often tough to find deep in the weeds each week.
Most interesting to me, however, is the Huskers’ record to this point feeling “true.” With those second-order wins, I’d consider anything within a half-win of the actual total to be just normal variance (given a team can’t record a half-win). That’s better than how it feels to be Louisville (-1.2) right now. The Cards probably could be the ACC favorite with a few different breaks.
And it beats how it feels to be preseason No. 1 Texas, too, which might be closer to 6-4 than it is 7-3.
Odds & Ends
After dropping its first set since mid-September at UCLA Friday—what qualifies as adversity in this jaw-dropping season—Nebraska volleyball got back to business with a sweep of No. 17 USC. It got late early for the Trojans as the Huskers won the first two sets 25-13 and 25-16.
Nebraska men’s basketball picked up a thrilling win Saturday at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls. Oklahoma jumped out to a 10-0 lead to start the game and again led by 10 early in the second half, but the Huskers battled back from both deficits for a 105-99 win. The points were the most NU has scored in regulation against a major-conference opponent since 1994 when the Huskers scored 105 against…Oklahoma. How illustrative was the win? Well, Nebraska’s not going to shoot 55.6% from 3 every night, but it’s a nice résumé item come March all the same.
It was announced Sunday this is a night game with a 6 p.m. CT kickoff. This was not Nebraska’s preferred time slot as it’ll mean an early Sunday morning return to Lincoln followed by a short week to prepare for Iowa. But, as my son’s preschool teacher is good about telling him, “You get what you get,” which he has now weaponized.
With the smallest sample size of all the major American sports, maybe the relationship between record and quality in college football has always been more metaphorical than most even though it’s (defensibly) treated as the bottom line.