It's the college football offseason, and you know what that means: It's time to get on the Nebraska football hype train. The Cornhuskers haven't had a successful season in nearly 10 years, but every offseason it seems like they are bound to turn it around the following year. Year two of the Matt Rhule era is about to get underway, and despite a 5-7 season in 2023, Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt thinks that Nebraska can turn it around this year.
The issue with the Nebraska football team during their nearly decade-long bowl drought has been with finishing games. It's not like the Cornhuskers have been outmatched and are getting blown out in all of their losses. In fact, it's quite the opposite. They get in a position to win games, and then they choke. Joel Klatt thinks that this could be the year where they finally finish some more games out with wins.
“Nebraska, I'm high on this program,” Klatt said on his podcast, The Joel Klatt Show. “It's a team that went 5-7 last year. Just on its face, that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. However, if you just dig a little bit on what Matt Rhule and Nebraska was last year, you'll see that they lost four of those games by exactly three points, and they turned it over 15 times in those games. Those can easily become wins. Easily. Now you're talking about an eight win team in his first year. And don't we feel a whole lot different about that?”
Nebraska fans saw a lot of the same things last year that they saw while Scott Frost was the head coach. Yes, it's encouraging that they are close to breaking through, but this is what happens every year. However, they have to get over the hump eventually, right?
Dylan Raiola could be the difference maker for Nebraska football
The turnovers were obviously a major issue last season, and Nebraska quarterbacks were the ones typically putting the ball in harms way. If they clean that up, those losses can become wins. The Cornhuskers will have a new QB this year, and it could be the extremely talented true freshman Dylan Raiola.
“By the way, of those 15 turnovers, 13 of them were by the quarterback,” Klatt continued. “So now you're gonna get a new quarterback and let's, for sake of argument, says it's Dylan Raiola. I understand that it's a true freshman and you don't know exactly how he's gonna play, but man this guy is talented. He looks a lot like Patrick Mahomes. I'm like ‘wow, that looks a lot like Patrick in college when he was at Texas Tech.' If he plays like that at all, watch out for Nebraska.”
One thing that is certainly in Nebraska's favor is their schedule. The coaches poll was released on Monday, and the Cornhuskers only play three teams ranked in that poll: Ohio State (2), USC (23) and Iowa (25). They don't play a single ranked team in their first seven games. A lot of people think that Nebraska will be 7-0 going into their huge matchup with Ohio State. The schedule certainly works out nicely for them and gives them a chance for a break through season.
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