I’m Ready To Get Hurt Again: Why 2025 Will Be The Long-Awaited Breakthrough Season For Nebraska

Nebraska is going 9-3 or better this season.

Now that I’ve got your attention, let me explain myself.

Nebraska’s season opener is now 17 days away. And with such a short runway to the start of the season, we’ve long reached that part of the offseason where we’re talking ourselves into a variety of things happening – mostly good things, mind you – for Nebraska. It’s the true marker of an upcoming campaign, and I’m no different than you. After months of diving into the individuals that will play such a large part in the success or failure of the 2025 Cornhuskers, I know that you can catch me arguing for a massive breakthrough for the team at large.

On a recent episode of The Athletic Football Show, Dave Helman and Derrik Klassen gave me the inspiration for this exercise, as they looked around the NFL at the characters or teams in the NFL that they’re believing in one more time, even if they shouldn’t. Ultimately, they might not totally believe in the arguments, but they certainly want to.

By the time I listened to the podcast, I know I had a similar list brewing for Nebraska.

Matt Rhule and Nebraska have a big 2025 ahead of them. | Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images

Which is why we’re here today.

There’s no doubt you, too, have your own list of reasons why you’re buying in; why you’re ready to be hurt again with Husker football. Like Helman and Klassen, you also might not totally believe what you’re saying. Maybe you need a long night at your favorite watering hole before you’re finally willing to go all the way with an opinion. Maybe you’re chugging the Matt Rhule Year Three Kool-Aid. Or maybe you’re just ready to buy in one more time, because you’re sick of not thinking a big season is possible. Either way, I’d love to hear why you’re buying in.

Here are four reasons of my own.

1. The schedule allows for the team to find itself before a big time late-October and November

Yeah, you read that right. We’re starting with schedule talk.

Surely this hasn’t come back to bite us in the past.

If you’ve been following the discourse surrounding Nebraska this season, you’ve undoubtedly seen and read what people have had to say about Nebraska’s schedule. Phil Steele calls it the easiest schedule in the entire Big Ten. Kelly Ford has Nebraska at 38th-toughest in the Power 4, which is relatively low, considering they play in the Big Ten conference. According to Bill Connelly’s SP+ numbers, Nebraska is favored in all but three games this season.

Nebraska's 2025 season according to Kelly Ford. | KFordratings.co

Diving a bit deeper into Kelly Ford’s numbers, Nebraska is favored to win seven of their first eight football games. And in only one of those games – Minnesota on a Friday night in mid-October – is the game a true coin flip, with Nebraska’s chances set at 54%.

We’ve said this over and over (and over and over) in recent years. “This schedule has a nice runway before the tough games.” “If they beat [insert school here], they could be 6-0!” I know we did last year, when schools like Colorado (win), Illinois (loss), and Indiana (loss) looked a whole lot easier in August than they turned out to be in September and October.

Nebraska's 2025 schedule according to Bill Connelly's SP+ rankings. | Bill Connelly/Josh Peterson illustration

And yet… outside of Michigan, do you really see a team like that on the schedule in the first eight games? Cincinnati will feature one of the most un-neutral neutral site atmospheres in my lifetime, with Nebraska fans taking up 80% or more of Arrowhead Stadium. After that, Nebraska returns home to Lincoln, where they’ll play their next four games, with an idle week built in as well. They won’t play in a true road game until Oct. 11 at Maryland, the sixth full week of the college football season.

Michigan State, Maryland, and Northwestern are all October matchups featuring a combination of teams, coaches, and players that leave a lot to be desired. There’s no doubt that Minnesota has absolutely owned Nebraska in recent seasons, going 6-1 vs. the Huskers since the 2017 shellacking in Minneapolis. But after the way Matt Rhule and co. fell to the Gophers in his first game as Cornhuskers head coach, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t a game they were circling.

Can Matt Rhule and Nebraska get revenge against PJ Fleck and Minnesota this season? | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

Hell, even Michigan, the lone College Football Playoff contender on Nebraska’s schedule before November arrives, will come into Lincoln with all sorts of questions. It’ll presumably be the second road start of Bryce Underwood’s career, and should come without his head coach, Sherrone Moore, as he serves the second of a two-game suspension. Will I pick Nebraska to win this game? No. Would it shock me? Absolutely not.

Why can’t Nebraska enter November 7-1? Full of all sorts of confidence, with 50-50 games on the docket vs. USC and Iowa, a manageable road game in the Rose Bowl vs. UCLA, and the toughest game on the schedule, at Penn State in the penultimate week of the season.

With 2026 road games at Illinois, Iowa, and Oregon, and home games vs. Indiana, Ohio State, and Washington, this is the time for Nebraska to take advantage of a schedule everyone will be pining for a year from now.

I'm ready to get hurt again; This is the year they do it.

2. Dylan Raiola is about to take a massive step forward

By now, you probably know the numbers by heart. 13 touchdowns, 11 interceptions in 2024, Dylan Raiola was The Prince Who Was Promised in the early part of the season, had an October to forget, and did enough in November (and the bowl game in December) to leave everyone in a bit of flux on what exactly they should think of him.

If you believe in Raiola’s ability to reach the five-star status he came to Lincoln with, you’ll probably point to those September games, in particular the first three quarters against Illinois, as he made all sorts of plays with his arm in a way we’d never seen from a Nebraska quarterback. But don’t forget the throws he had in other games; the end of half touchdown passes against UTEP and Wisconsin still stick with me all these months later.

This Dylan Raiola touchdown pass to Jahmal Banks vs. Wisconsin was real nice. pic.twitter.com/mf9sAyEQ2A
— Josh Peterson (@joshtweeterson) July 27, 2025

If you’re not buying in, well, you have plenty of examples; the terrible sub-50% completion day against Rutgers, as he missed wide-open receivers in his progression. The abysmal first 2+ quarters against UCLA, a game where he completed just 14 of 27 passes. The inability to recognize pressure at the end of the Illinois or Iowa losses, the former leading to an impossibly long third and 42 in overtime, and the latter leading to a strip-sack that gave Iowa the ball in Nebraska territory, where they’d knock in the game-winning field goal.

So, which side are you on?

Speaking on Saturday to the Nebraska media, it’s pretty obvious where Matt Rhule falls. He had an interesting, if not outright bullish, answer on Dylan Raiola and the Nebraska quarterbacks when Steve Sipple asked what the QB picture looked like.

This is quite the answer about the quarterback room as a whole, but listen to the way Matt Rhule talks about Dylan Raiola. pic.twitter.com/kmlHAttFgN
— Josh Peterson (@joshtweeterson) August 10, 2025

“I thought Dylan was excellent,” Matt Rhule began. “It's scrimmage one… But Dylan was excellent in the situations.”

Later, he added, “Dylan does things, you know, non-physical things at a really high level; makes the check, reads the defense,” and it was hard for me not to buy into this being real.

There’s a reason the guy was ranked as the top player in his entire recruiting class throughout much of his cycle. There’s a reason he was the no-doubt-about-it starter when he arrived on campus. The quarterback that made those big-time throws – throws we’ve never seen from a player with the N on his helmet, mind you – went through the usual ups and downs of a freshman quarterback. But with better players around him, an offensive line that could get an entire write-up of their own, not to mention Dana freaking Holgorsen at offensive coordinator, anything less than a massive uptick in production would be truly shocking.

I'm ready to get hurt again; It's time for Dylan Raiola’s breakout season.

3. It’s time to start believing in special teams again

When Mike Ekeler was hired by Nebraska in early-February, I was excited about the move, from mainly from the long-term perspective, but it was hard to believe in a big jump in 2025. It was too big of an overhaul, I thought. They’d need to make too many changes in too short a time to see that come to fruition.

That’s what I thought then.

Mike Ekeler is back at Nebraska and should have a big impact on Nebraska's special teams. | Kaleb Henry

Six months later, I ask why can’t Nebraska execute at a high level on special teams? In 2024, Nebraska ranked 122nd out of 134 teams, according to SP+; 116th in the same metric according to Kelly Ford. Think about the reasons why Nebraska’s special teams were so awful. At times, they literally couldn’t snap the ball properly. At times, they literally couldn’t hold the ball properly. At times, they made the poor decision to return a kickoff out of an end zone. Their kicking wasn’t always perfect, but the operation was so bad at steps one and two that I can’t help but wonder how much of that got in the heads of kickers Tristan Alvano and John Hohl.

There is absolutely no way they’re that bad again. None.

And while Brian Buschini was actually quite serviceable in 2024, with a 44.7 yards-per-punt average, there’s some big-time room for improvement. Enter Archie Wilson, a freshman punter from Australia. Not only is Wilson a rugby-style punter, but he also makes use of both legs. He’ll roll left to punt, roll right to punt, and if you believe Matt Rhule, this could lead to some fake punts as well.

To add on top of the kicking game, Jacory Barney is bullish on his abilities, and the abilities of the return unit.

Jacory Barney: "I'm going to lead the nation in punt returns."
— Sam McKewon (@swmckewonOWH) July 31, 2025

Unsurprisingly, I’ve been told Nebraska is putting a ton of work into special teams this offseason. Mike Ekeler has been too good for too long, across multiple stops, and it will show in 2025.

I'm ready to get hurt again; you can trust in Nebraska's special teams again.

4. The Groin Kick Era of Husker football is over

I could give you a bunch of new stats about why it’s been so miserable being a Husker fan over the last decade, but there’s no need to twist the knife. Instead, I’ll quote my own writing as I kicked off the Groin Kick Chronicles in mid-June:

From 2011-14, Nebraska went an astounding 13-5 in one-score games. That’s 72.2%.

In 10 full seasons since that 2014 win over Iowa (and the bowl game that finished up that season), Nebraska has found themselves in 63 games decided by a single touchdown. They’ve only won 17.

Since the 2014 Holiday Bowl vs. USC, Nebraska has lost 70 times. Of those 70 losses, 46 have come by eight points or fewer. The team that won 72.2% of one-score games over a four-year span has since gone 17-46 in those same types of games. That’s 26.9%.

I’m drinking the Kool-Aid on this one, and it starts with – and I can’t believe I’m typing this – the Pinstripe Bowl win over Boston College.

With under 9:00 left, Boston College took over the ball at their own 36-yard line. Nebraska led 20-2, on their way towards a massive rebound of a win following the Black Friday horror show vs. Iowa. The Eagles marched their way down the field, ultimately punching in a one-yard touchdown with 6:11 to go. They’d miss the two-point conversion, giving the ball back to the Huskers down 20-8.

What followed next was straight out of the Groin Kick book. Nebraska quickly went three and out, Boston College blocked the punt, and one play later, the game was suddenly 20-15. Barely five minutes of game time had passed, and Nebraska’s three-score lead had all but evaporated. Not only were they going to lose by a score, they were going to blow an 18-point lead in the process.

Nebraska's offensive line helped salt the game away vs. Boston College in the 2024 Pinstripe Bowl. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Only, that’s not what happened. With about four minutes left in the game, Nebraska’s offense took over and never gave the ball back. They picked up first downs on their own volition; they picked up first downs with the help of Boston College. They picked up first downs running, and they picked up first downs passing.

The team that couldn’t get out of its own way for a solid decade finally did. They salted the game away and celebrated on a wet, gray day in Yankee Stadium.

How many times since [insert your least favorite year here] have you said, “they just need to finish a football game,” as a reason to believe it could become second-nature moving forward? A dozen? Two dozen? 139 times? Why can’t the Boston College performance – a fourth quarter that teetered and almost delivered one more groin kick for the road – be the thing that sends the program back in the right direction?

The stats folks will tell you that this stuff evens out. Sam McKewon hit on this in July, writing, “But it is almost certain NU will rise to closer to .500 in one-score games by the end of the decade.” He later added, “Math says things will even out, and turn kindly in the Huskers' favor.”

I’m a believer in the impossibility of the last decade coming to an end. Matt Rhule is 3-10 in one-score games at Nebraska. That number will get closer to .500 by season’s end.

I'm ready to get hurt again; The Groin Kick Era is done.

So, that’s why I believe. Or rather, why I’d like to believe.

Coming next week, four reasons why I’m not talking myself into a big 2025 and why, instead, it’ll be more of the same for Matt Rhule and Nebraska.

If you have a comment for Josh, send him an email: joshpeterson.huskermax@gmail.com.

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