Nebraska did something last night that it has not done since 2003. This illustrates the depth of either heartbreak or simple incompetency that has surrounded Nebraska football for over two decades.
Last night’s 20-17 win over Cincinnati was the first opening game win over a power conference foe since Nebraska beat #24 Oklahoma State 17-7 in 2003.
Since 2003 Nebraska has lost openers to BYU (yes, I’m including them), Ohio State, Illinois, Northwestern and Minnesota. With the exception of Ohio State in 2020, all were one score losses. Heartbreak losses.
Opening games are difficult to win. Neither team has tape on the other. Neither team has any genuine idea of what to expect from their own players. Which is why a lot of coaches will say that the biggest jump a team will make is between Week 1 and Week 2.
So if you can find a way to get a win against a power opponent in Week 1 of a college football season then that is something we should probably look at with joy. Including a win over a power opponent who was in the College Football Playoff Semifinals only four years ago.
Was it a clean game? Far from it. What the game really did illustrate is that a failure to finish drives can make or break a game. Nebraska was moving the ball with relative ease almost the entire game, but when you have to settle for field goals or turnover on downs then a game that should have been 20-3 halfway through the third quarter turns into a nailbiter at the end.
Now Nebraska has two weeks against Akron and Houston Christian. Nebraska should beat both with ease. It is two great opportunities to get better. If Nebraska had played Northeast Ohio Community College last night instead of Cincinnati then the coaches and players would not have learned as much about themsleves (both the good and the bad).
That is the beauty of last night. Nebraska finally gets over the hump in a one score game that truly felt like “here we go again.” The ball bounced the way of the Huskers and an undersized Blackshirt went and made a play to seal the win.
I walked away from last night thinking that Nebraska looked like a team that will get a whole lot better. Nebraska did not look like a finished product. They looked like a week one team.
Nebraska fans are known, and rightfully so, for their willingness to go to the ends of the earth to support their football team. But how many times have Nebraska fans flooded a football stadium that was not their own, to only lose?
For all of their warts, for a team to go into Arrowhead Stadium with Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce in attendance, with the pressure of a crowd made up of 98% Nebraska fans for a “Cincinnati home game,” to go and do something no Nebraska team has done since 2003? Yea, I’ll take that.
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A big bump is preferred, of course.
At two previous coaching stops, Temple and Baylor, his teams took sizable steps forward in his third year as head coach.
Three things Cincinnati head coach Scott Satterfield said after loss to Nebraska
Cincinnati head coach Scott Satterfield spoke to the media following Nebraska’s 20-17 victory.
Here are three things he had to say about the Huskers:
What we learned from Nebraska’s win over Cincinnati in Kansas City
KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Nebraska’s much-anticipated 2025 season started with a bang, as the Huskers held on to top Cincinnati 20-17 in Thursday night’s opener at Arrowhead Stadium.
Here are five of our biggest takeaways from the win and what it means for NU going forward…
Christopherson: Husker offense has more it has to show, but Week 1 win can be a steppingstone too
Nebraska’s offense had to battle for what it got on Thursday. Credit Cincinnati for some of it. But you sense the Huskers have more explosive capabilities, which it will need to show more as they go.
Nebraska beats Cincinnati in Kansas City as college football season begins
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Nebraska team unveiling in Year 3 under coach Matt Rhule, though rough around the edges, finished as a success Thursday night.
The Huskers beat Cincinnati 20-17 in a pseudo-home game at Arrowhead Stadium, turning away the Bearcats’ attempt at a drive to win or force overtime in the final seconds.
A true home game might have changed everything for the Cincinnati Bearcats | Letter
The University of Cincinnati administration agreed to play a home football game at a full Arrowhead Stadium, possibly the loudest place to play in the NFL, 203 miles from Lincoln, Nebraska, home of their opponent, the University of Nebraska. Arrowhead is 583 miles from Nippert Stadium. Not quite a good location for a home game.
