So, Nebraska made a preseason top 25...

Plenty of signs point to an improved team in 2024, but the bullish summer of 2019 isn't a distant memory yet.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Give me power ratings or, if not that, at least give me a preseason top-25 that takes a couple of big swings. I prefer models and data but if opinion is what’s on offer, I’m looking for feasible takery, something outside the staid consensus that emerges early but within the bounds of reasonable probability. Maybe the conventional wisdom rankings are more accurate at the end of the year—I actually doubt they are—but most fans aren’t looking for accuracy this far out. They want something to talk about and, as it turns out, believing a professional football pundit is crazy (or brilliant) is more fun than, say, President’s Day.

Fox broadcaster Joel Klatt understood the assignment. The former Colorado quarterback talked through his post-spring top-25 on his podcast this week, and it came with at least a couple of surprises—Utah at No. 6¹ and Nebraska at No. 22.

Here’s part of Klatt’s rationale for Nebraska:

I think Nebraska is going to be a pretty darn good football team. They won five games a year ago, in Year 1 for Matt Rhule, and yet they should’ve been a lot better. Their defense was a top-20 defense in the country, scoring and yards. Granted, you could say that about a lot of Big Ten West teams, but they were, those were the numbers. They lost four games by exactly three points, and in those games they had 15 turnovers. Folks, 15 turnovers. Thirteen of those 15 were by the quarterbacks. They were -17 in turnover margin last year, which was the second-worst in the country. They won five, and they lost four by exactly three points with those turnover numbers. It does not take a rocket scientist to know if Dylan Raiola is just a little bit better at quarterback—which I think he can be, particularly from a turnover standpoint—this could easily be a team that wins eight or nine football games.

Nothing too objectionable² there. If you wanted to summarize 2023 Nebraska as a 7-5 team that went 5-7 due to a crippling turnover problem, I wouldn’t argue. There’s more to the story, of course, but this works well enough as shorthand to put the Huskers in the “better than it looked” category, which is all you need if you’re looking to spice up a preseason top-25 a little bit.

I prefer a different approach, but I agree with Klatt’s overall view of NU in 2024. I didn’t even make it out of December before writing the “Huskers’ 5-7 record was the best of any Power 5 team that was -17 or worse in turnovers since 2007 when, well, Nebraska went 5-7 while being -17.”³ Flatten that turnover margin, much less come close to flipping it, and the record improves absent any new flaws. But there are other factors I’ve tried to point out that make “conditions favorable” for the Huskers this season. I am somewhat ashamed but duty-bound to admit that might qualify as a strong take from me. Maybe I’d be a better meteorologist than sports pundit.

Klatt, however, is a good pundit because he understands the performance aspect of this. I wasn’t surprised he put some chips on the Huskers because 1) Nebraska isn’t the 22nd best team in the country right now, but it could be before the year is done, and 2) we’ve been here with Klatt before.

Here, watch this from 2019.⁴

While the details are different, it’s almost eerie how similar that clip feels to what Klatt⁵ said on his podcast this week. The 2024 Huskers, coming off a 5-7 season, might win “eight or nine games.” He thinks the 2019 Huskers, coming off a 4-8 season, “win nine, maybe 10, football games this year.”

Of course, we know how that 2019 season—which probably was the last one to match this current offseason in the vibes department—played out. The point isn’t to pull receipts⁶ on Klatt. He wasn’t alone in his optimism for Scott Frost’s second season. The preseason consensus of nearly 20 magazines and models put Nebraska at 26th to start 2019. None of those outlets had the Huskers as high as 13th, Klatt’s ranking, but it was generally a bull market all summer.

That Nebraska didn’t come close to sniffing the top 25 after a Week 2 loss at Colorado, I think, still resonates with fans today. Some swore off “hype” after that, and that’s fair enough. Preseason optimism in 2024 may feel like déjà vu, and that feeling won’t go away until the Huskers actually exceed expectations one of these years.

With the benefit of hindsight on 2019, however, I think Nebraska’s case for an upward trajectory is stronger in 2024, even without the benefit of a returning quarterback. Eventually someone was going to put the Huskers in a top 25 this offseason. Klatt went ahead and did it.

It’s not as big of a bet as he made the last time. Nebraska was 39th in the preseason SP+ ratings in 2019, and Klatt slotted it in 26 spots higher than that cold, unfeeling model. This time, by putting NU at No. 22, he’s only 17 spots higher than SP+.

Yes, that means Nebraska is 39th again, which I suppose doesn’t help at all with the déjà vu. Maybe a win over Colorado in, yes, Week 2 is the only thing that can close the loop.

1. Not that wild, if you ask me. The Utes are 17th in preseason SP+.

2. Except for the bit about rocket scientists. The average rocket scientist, smart as they may be, probably doesn’t know a lot about Dylan Raiola much less his ability to avoid turnovers as a true freshman in the Big Ten.

3. Between the 2007 and 2024 Nebraska bookends, 17 teams had a worse record while being -17 or worse in turnover margin.

4. Sorry for the low audio. This video only seems to exist on Facebook, so I screen-recorded it so you didn’t have to click a link. You can find the original here.

5. It’s worth noting that Klatt was staunchly in Frost’s corner all the way to the end. Nothing wrong with that, he just stands out as one of the many who was in from the beginning and one of the few to never hit the ejector seat.

6. If all of our stories from that time period hadn’t been wiped from the internet last fall, I’d show you some of my own receipts.