LINCOLN, Nebraska (WOWT) – One week after their biggest win under head coach Matt Rhule, the Huskers look to carry their momentum into Memorial Stadium on Saturday and enter next week’s Big Ten Conference play undefeated.
No. 23 Nebraska (2-0) hosts Northern Iowa (2-0) of the FCS on Saturday in its final non-conference game of the 2024 season before facing Illinois next Friday.
GAME INFORMATION
- WHEN: 6:30 p.m., Saturday, September 14
- WHERE: Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Nebraska.
- REGARD: Big Ten Network
- HEAR: Huskers Radio Network
- VEGAS OPPORTUNITIES: Northern Iowa +32.5, O/U 47.5
The Huskers are in top form after crushing Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes 28-10 in primetime last Saturday night. The game drew 6.3 million viewers nationwide – more than any other game of Week 2, aside from the top-10 matchup between Texas and Michigan.
The result of the game against Colorado quickly propelled Nebraska to the forefront of the college football conversation, signaling a return to national prominence. A No. 23 AP Top 25 appearance confirmed those signals. With attention, however, comes expectations, and now the pressure is on for the Huskers to deliver a quality follow-up performance this weekend.
“You come here with high expectations,” Matt Rhule said at a press conference on Monday. “You come here to play big games. You come here to play in front of this crowd. Those are the reasons you come here, so we expect to be ranked. Whether it’s 23rd or 24th, that’s not where we want to end up. So we’re going to try to go 1-0 every week and see what happens.”
Standing in their way is an undefeated UNI team that has victories over FCS opponents Valpraiso and St. Thomas Minnesota.
On paper, the Panthers can’t hold a candle to Colorado’s prolific offense that shut down Nebraska last week, but they have one of the best running backs in all of college football: Tye Edwards. Edwards is a 6-foot-4, 230-pound wrecking ball who made waves in the first two games of his final season, rushing for 315 yards on just 30 carries.
“I have a lot of respect for what they did there (at Northern Iowa),” Rhule said. “I know they know how to win against Northern Iowa. They expect them to win. They’ve been in places like this before… It’s a scary game in that regard because Northern Iowa knows how to win.”
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