New-look Nebraska?

Three keys to Nebraska-Cincinnati as both programs enter high-stakes seasons.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Nebraska kicks off year three under Matt Rhule Thursday night in Kansas City, and you know what that means. Or, at least, you’ve been unable to avoid hearing what a third season has meant in the past for Rhule—10 wins at Temple, 11 at Baylor.

Beyond just a two-data-point trend, however, the Huskers enter 2025 on the trendy side. Nebraska is expected to climb at least another rung on the ladder, and if it does it’ll probably be more than just the same Year 3 magic that is now expected from Rhule.

It will almost have to be because Nebraska opens the year with a lot of change for a team some tab as a darkhorse playoff contender.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of newness there,” Cincinnati head coach Scott Satterfield said Tuesday. He was talking about Nebraska, but he could’ve been talking about the sport as a whole entering the first full week of the season.

The Huskers brought in 15 transfers this offseason. Eleven of them were on the initial two-deep, including nine listed as the presumed starter. The defense will look different in multiple ways, now under the direction of John Butler after two stout years under Tony White. Going by the depth chart, the Blackshirts likely won’t have a native Nebraskan in the starting lineup for the season opener for the first time since 2019.

Offensively, Dana Holgorsen gets to make his own bets after rushing to the table, picking up and playing someone else’s hand late last season. On special teams, where effort and enthusiasm seem like more than half the battle, Nebraska added Mike Ekeler, one of the most enthusiastic and effort-driven assistants in the game.

Those are a lot of variables for a team expected to keep climbing. What will it look like in Arrowhead Stadium against a Cincinnati team projected middle-of-the-pack in the Big 12?

As a Thursday night game in Week 1, there’s been a line out for Nebraska-Cincinnati for months. As of Wednesday, the Huskers were still holding as a 6-to-6.5-point favorite. A quick tour of the predictive power rankings shows SP+ with NU -9, FPI -5, McIllece Sports -5.5 and FEI -2.7.

Last year’s stats have always been an unsatisfactory basis for comparison in Week 1, but that seems increasingly true in the transfer era. We’ll have numbers to look at for all future game previews, but for this one I mashed together the SP+ and FEI ratings by unit.

Predictive ratings are useful, but they’re still built on priors and as I look at those numbers for Nebraska, I don’t think they’re getting enough credit on offense, but we’ll see. That’s what the games are for.

So, how do the Huskers get out of Kansas City with a power-conference win? Here are three numbers I think will tell the story.