It's OK to Have Hope in Nebraska Football Ahead of the 2025 Season

In the first-ever Big Ten Breakdown, Ben Stevens looks at the 2025 Nebraska Cornhuskers and explains why he's hopeful this season will be a good one for the Big Red.

I have told you I got my start and my love with Big Ten football in Omaha, Nebraska, working as a sports reporter and anchor for the CBS affiliate KMTV 3 News Now. Nebraska holds a very special place in my heart. I'm sure you have seen me interact with many Nebraska fans on the streets of New York City. I feel very fond things to the Cornhuskers football program, and I'm not exactly shy about some of those biases.

So each and every year. I buy into the Husker hype train. I'm drinking the Kool-Aid much like you. So, how will we define Nebraska in the 2025 season? I've decided the phrase is this: is it Andy Dufresne or is it Ellis Redding, otherwise known as Red? If you have seen Shawshank Redemption, one of the great films in cinema in the history of it. Andy Dufresne and Red, polar opposites in a way of how they define the word “hope.” During their long tenure at Shawshank, Red, played by Morgan Freeman, tells Andy Dufresne, “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

If you've been following Nebraska the last three to four years, you probably resonate with that very idea. But Andy responds at the end, after he escapes Shawshank, he gets down to Mexico, he plants the plan for Red to come join him there on the beaches of Mexico as well, he writes in a note to Red that he finds somewhere in Maine. If you remember the quote being, “hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies.”

So, where does your hope lie for Nebraska in 2025? I am hopeful. I am optimistic, and how can you not be? But we have been spurned, and we have been in this spot many an offseason past; the Cornhuskers have the biggest dynasty in all of Big Ten football, maybe in all of college football. I think it's eight or nine consecutive offseason national championships. I say wink-wink.

Nebraska Head Coach Matt Rhule and quarterback Dyaln Raiola look up at the scoreboard during the Illinois game. — Matt Rhule and Dylan Raiola have a big year ahead. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

Last year was a big step in kind of realizing some of that hope, maybe turning more from Red’s version of hope to Andy Dufresne’s. To finally get the monkey off the back. To earn a bowl game birth for the first time since 2016. And not just seeing bowl eligibility, but winning a bowl game for the first time since 2015.

If you are watching in the great state of Nebraska, you know this – if you are listening there – you know this better than most: Year three Matt Rhule is one of the reasons you can be hopeful entering 2025 for the Huskers as well. In his first college football tenure as a head coach at Temple in year one they won two games, in year two, they reached bowl eligibility, at least posting six wins. In year three, 10 wins. It was the first time since 1979, the Temple Owls had won 10 games.

Then at Baylor, resurrecting that program that Art Briles left in absolute mayhem and in scandal. First year for Matt Rhule in Waco, one win. Second year, seven wins. Third year, 11 wins and a berth in the Big 12 Championship Game.

So, will year three Matt Rhule follow a similar trajectory this year at Nebraska? Five wins in 2023, seven including the bowl victory in 2024. Could 2025 be double-digit wins once again? I will repeat this often; if you are a team in the Big Ten and SEC, namely the big two in the Power Four, and you are a 10-win football team, you have a wonderful opportunity to earn a College Football Playoff spot. Could that be what Nebraska realizes this year?

Now let’s get down to the roster. Dylan Raiola; 13 touchdowns to 11 interceptions last year as a true freshman starter in Lincoln, with a ton of that hype. Eight of the touchdowns coming in the first four games. Three of his next five touchdowns that he produced came with Dana Holgorsen as the new offensive coordinator. And now they have a full off-season together. Dana Holgorsen, one of the best offensive coaches that you will find in this sport, and doing it for a very long time.

Love the offensive line, love the transfers, and Elijah Pritchett from Alabama; Rocco Spindler coming over from Notre Dame. Henry Lutovsky is still there as well. And Teddy Prochazka, if he can stay healthy. You have a really good offensive line that I believe could be the best, if not one of the best, in the Big Ten Conference this year. Let’s see what John Butler does as the defensive coordinator.

My one phrase that will define Nebraska in 2025: Andy Dufresne or Red? Is hope a dangerous thing, or is hope the best of all things, and no good thing ever dies? I lean more Andy Dufresne-skewed for Nebraska in the 2025 college football season.

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