What do we need to see from Nebraska in the next 2 weeks?

With all due respect, the Huskers are playing against their own standard over the next couple of games.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

It’s been more than six years since Nebraska has been favored by 30-plus points over an FBS opponent. The 24th-ranked Huskers opened the 2019 season Aug. 31 as 35.5-point favorites over South Alabama and put forth a fairly lackluster 35-21 win in a game that was 28-21 entering the fourth quarter. That Jaguar team went on to finish 2-10 losing by 36 to Memphis, 32 to UAB, 24 to Troy and 27 to Appalachian State.

Nebraska is in that territory again this week sitting as a 33.5-point favorite over Akron for Saturday’s home opener. The Zips opened the season last week by being shut out at home by Wyoming, 10-0, and has lost nine of its last 10 games¹ against power-conference teams by an average of nearly 45 points, dating back to 2021. Since 2003, away underdogs of 33-to-34 points are a combined 3-141 straight up.

All of which is to say the Huskers would have to be catastrophically bad on Saturday not to leave Memorial Stadium with a win. Akron hasn’t seriously challenged a decent-to-good power-conference team since beating No. 21 Northwestern in 2018.²

I hate games like this, though I can admit it’s not a bad setup for Nebraska. Having already clawed out a win over Cincinnati, the Huskers have two home games where they’ll be competing against their own standard as much as the opponent. There’s likely little NU can do these next two weeks to show us where it might fall on the decent-to-good spectrum, but 2-0 followed by 3-0 would get the Huskers to a big-opportunity game with Michigan visiting Lincoln at the end of the month.

That’s kind of the goal over the next two games—avoid the spotlight, by being in an uncomfortably close game, to earn the spotlight for the Big Ten opener.

Nebraska has plenty to work on to get to that point for the start of conference play.