'I Think They're Going to Win 8 or 9 Games': Split Zone Duo's Alex Kirshner On Nebraska's 2025 Season

On this week's I-80 Football Show, Alex Kirshner of Split Zone Duo joined Josh Peterson to talk about the 2025 college football season. They also took a look at Nebraska's season to this point, including Dylan Raiola, the game against Maryland on Saturday, and more.

Below is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

Josh: I think this team has been very interesting to cover so far through five games because for years people have been saying, “man, I would just want to see baby steps. I want to see them take a little bit of a step forward. I want to see better quarterback play.” And I feel like all of those things are happening. And yet people seem really annoyed around here, even though it's the program that coming into 2025 had the fewest wins – total wins in the Big Ten Conference – since the COVID year.

And so, how have you viewed their step forward? Because I certainly think they're a better team this year than last year [and] year one under Matt Rhule. And yet it's coming with some ugliness; the game against Michigan State over the last weekend wasn't always the prettiest. What have you made of that dichotomy?

Alex: Good question. I think this is a better Nebraska team, too. I think they're going to win eight or nine games. We're not going to be asking the question about bowls going down to the wire this year. I don't think that's going to happen.

I think that, and I'm curious for your thoughts on this being on the ground there, I think that Raiola, in some ways, has kind of courted the high bar; the expectation. When he flipped from Georgia to Nebraska was, to his credit, I guess at the time, pretty explicit about, “I want to be the guy who goes to this place and changes things.” Like he sort of played in, not in these exact words, but played into the "savior narrative" a little bit when he went there.

Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola fires a pass to Nyziah Hunter against Michigan. — Dylan Raiola has become a lightning rod for discourse in college football. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

I'm not one of the people who're going to make fun of him over the Mahomes cosplay stuff, but there are people who will do that. And I think a lot of people root for this player to fail because they find the Mahomes thing so weird. I guess that's up to him and the people around him to discuss whether he should have done all of that, because I think it's kind of predictable that in the internet world that if you basically exactly mimic someone's body language like that and it's Patrick Mahomes, that's going to get you kind of nationally lightning-rodded.

So for all those reasons, I think people are sort of looking to punch holes in Raiola in a way that is different but kind of similar to the way that they look to punch holes in Arch Manning. And if Dylan doesn't care about that, then honestly, great for him because it's not really his problem unless he allows it to be.

Josh: I'll make a comparison to you that I made on my radio show recently. I am a sad sack Dallas Cowboys fan, and living through the Tony Romo era was very interesting because I always felt like there was this one faction that was like, “he sucks. He's overrated. He always turns the ball over at the worst moments in time.” And then there was this part of the Cowboys fan base that was like, “This dude's better than Troy Aikman. He's going to take us back to the promised land." All these things. And I felt like I was always in the middle; not as bad as you think he is, not as good as you think he is.

And I kind of find myself in the same spot with Dylan Raiola. Last week, Bill Connelly put out the rankings of every starting Power Four quarterback, and he had Raiola at 25th. And I was like, “Don't really know if I can argue a whole lot with that.” Maybe a little bit higher, maybe a little bit lower, but I think that's kind of where he is right now. But, all of the other stuff, and you mentioned it, whether it's Mahomes or the savior complex, like those things; I think that is why he is as big of a lightning rod and that he has the last name of an NFL player, at least for us around here. With his dad being Dominic Raiola. I think that it’s a perfect stew for discourse in 2025 about a quarterback like this.

Alex: Definitely. And there aren't that many quarterbacks in college football who generate that type of discourse. I think even at pretty big-time programs now, it’s really common for teams to elevate a quarterback who is just some guy. Like a couple of years ago, he was a four-star or five-star. Of course, his commitment was a big deal. But then you kind of just forget about him.

He's a backup for a while. And it's like, all right, well, we believe in this guy. Gunner Stockton at Georgia. Ty Simpson at Alabama. Even Julian Sayin at Ohio State, who had been committed to Alabama and then left after Saban. And goes to Ohio State and just sits for a year and then is elevated. CJ Carr at Notre Dame. Even Dante Moore at Oregon was a major five-star freshman a couple years ago at UCLA; just goes and sits for a year. You kind of forget about him. You don't really know much about him. Then you elevate him.

Few quarterbacks understand the Dylan Raiola celebrity as well as Arch Manning at Texas. | Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images

It's actually pretty rare to have sort of a celebrity player elevated so quickly to a quarterback job in this sport. It just doesn't happen that much. And then you add in the way that we like to talk about quarterbacks in this country. And there's your stew that you're talking about.

Josh: You are a Maryland grad. I wanted to ask you about their performance this weekend. I was excited for a potential of a 4-1 versus a 5-0 team. All of the jokes about “October Maryland “and “October Locksley” have now been made over the course of the last few days since that performance. This was an interesting one because the end of the first half, there's a targeting penalty. A defender is then thrown out for the rest of the game, and it really does seem like that was quite the dividing line for Maryland's performance versus Washington; first half versus second half.

Alex: Yeah, Maryland has a great pass rush. I think it's going to be a huge problem for Nebraska, honestly, when they see each other this weekend. They got these two true freshmen, Sydney Stewart and Zahir Mathis, who are great players. And I'm kind of shocked that Maryland got both of them, but they are really tough. And Stewart got tossed on a pretty borderline targeting foul on a Hail Mary at the end of the first half.

Sidney Stewart missed the second half of Maryland's loss to Washington because of a targeting penalty. With Nebraska's pass protection issues, he could have an impact on the game Saturday. | Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images

A huge bummer for Maryland and Maryland's pass rush, predictably, was much, much less after that and the offense also basically stopped playing about halfway through the third quarter. And so you had a 20-point blown lead for one of the most devastating Maryland football losses in a long time. And that's saying something because pretty much all Maryland does whenever things are going well is take devastating losses. This one stung.

Josh: How do you think they're rebounding from it? Because like this was such a weird team to talk about in the offseason, because Locksley was very upfront about how NIL and money had like really maybe caused a rift in the locker room. And so, I'll be honest, like even with Malik Washington, I had my guard up for, “is this gonna be maybe the first Maryland team in a while that just doesn't even have any good vibes whatsoever,” but they put together a really nice September. How do you think they move forward off that tough loss?

Alex: I think they're gonna play a very low-scoring game against Nebraska. I think both teams are gonna score right around 20 points and it'll be marginal. I think Maryland moves forward playing in a stadium that is filled with Nebraska fans, if I were to guess.

There will be no Maryland enthusiasm about this game. Maryland football has a very hard time getting fan support, which is why last week was so devastating. They actually had a very rare sellout, first in a long time for them. They were undefeated. If they won, they were probably going to be ranked this week. And so, to let it get away, very tough.

And I imagine that, you know, I've seen how you all travel. I've seen it with my own eyes. I think there will be a lot of Nebraska red among the Maryland red at this game. And the nice thing for Maryland is that they're similar shades. So it might not be so obvious when you're looking out at the bleachers at Maryland Stadium.

Emmett Johnson and Nyziah Hunter have been two of the most impactful players for Nebraska football in 2025. | Kylie Graham-Imagn Images

But I ultimately think Nebraska will win this game on Saturday, both because of everything I know about how this goes for Maryland and just because I don't think Maryland's going to be able to score. I don't think Nebraska will score much either, frankly, but I see no way that Maryland is scoring a lot of points against this defense.

Josh: I know that people used to make jokes about Indiana doing it too, where, like, they would make sure to take the pretty pictures from above the stadium when Ohio State came into town. Like this could be one of those. “Hey, take the fun pictures above the stadium because no matter if Nebraska does or doesn't invade the stadium, it's all gonna be red.”

Alex: Exactly. A helicopter doesn't know.

Elsewhere on the I-80 Football Show, Alex discussed the 2025 college football season to this point, including the wild times for Bill Belichick and North Carolina, the big matchup in Eugene between Oregon and Indiana, and so much more. Watch the entire interview below!

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