So did NU actually 'win' the portal in 2025?

And what's it mean if it did with more resources reportedly on the way?

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

It was a pretty bold press conference for a bye-week Monday. While Nebraska still has two regular-season games to play, and maybe about an even chance of getting to nine wins this year, Matt Rhule spent a portion of his weekly session talking about the future. Specifically, roster construction, maintenance and the ever-evolving portal.

“In the previous couple of years, I had to make a lot of hard decisions because we didn’t have the money everyone else had,” he said. “We had good money.”

But good still loses to better, something we saw play out last winter when a handful of talented contributors went elsewhere. On Monday, Rhule—newly extended and, apparently, having gotten some promises for increased NIL money—talked about those days as if they were the past.

“We can now go get anybody we want. At the same time, we also have the ability to keep our guys now. Guys don’t have to be embarrassed about, ‘Hey, Coach, these people are offering me this.’”

That won’t do anything to lower expectations for 2026 when Nebraska, barring some sort of mass exodus, should return a bunch of key players from a team that’s currently 7-3 despite being young, despite losing some key pieces to better money.

Credit development. Credit some key coaching changes. But also, according to Rhule, credit what NU did in response to some of its high-profile defections.

“I think we did well in the portal last year,” he said. “I think we won the portal last year.”

So, did they?