seaofred92
All-American
https://fbschedules.com/ncaa-2020/team/nebraska
9/5 Purdue
9/12 Central Michigan
9/19 South Dakota State
9/26 Cincinnati
10/3 @ Northwestern
10/10 Illinois
10/17 IDLE
10/24 @ Rutgers
10/31 @ Ohio State
11/7 Penn State
11/14 @ Iowa
11/21 @ Wisconsin
11/27 Minnesota
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Immediate thoughts: This schedule is sneakily brutal.
Purdue will be getting back Moore and beat us this year. This is a game Nebraska really needs to win to set the tone for 2020 as not only is it the season opener, but its also a conference game within the division. Huskers absolutely have to win this game.
Central Michigan is playing in the MAC Title game this upcoming week, and went from 1-11 in 2018 to 8-4 under Jim McElwain in his first year. They lost by 5 @ Miami (FL) and Wisconsin pounded them. Doesn’t matter the league, playing a team that is used to winning is never easy. Again Nebraska should win this game but depending on the outcome of Purdue, if we don’t come mentally ready to play, this game could be tighter than many hope for (see 2017 NIU for additional detail).
South Dakota State lost by a TD @ Minnesota this year (and really blew the game). I’ve watched a few of their games as I’m sure some of you have, they have a fun explosive offense and do a good job mixing up the play calls. This isn’t just a standard push-over Bethune Cookman type FCS game. They’ve got enough on their roster, especially with all the #NebraskaJacks, to make things competitive in Lincoln.
What if I told you Nebraska is playing a non-conference game against a team that won 11 games in 2018, is currently ranked in the top 20 in the country in the CFP rankings in 2019, is playing for its conference title game this weekend, and most likely a NY6 Bowl Bid to the Cotton Bowl if they win? And then what if I told you most Nebraska fans that I’ve seen on this board are chalking this game up as an automatic win next year? Wouldn’t make much sense right? Well that is the Cincinnati Bearcats, who will return All-AAC running back Michael Warren Jr as well as a third year starting QB in Desmond Ridder. This team’s defense is LEGIT, and will be led by All-AAC Safety James Wiggins, who is coming back from injury missing the 2019 season. Luke Fickell is the head coach and is plenty familiar with the Huskers from his days at Ohio State. This game scares the living bejesus out of me.
Every single game against Northwestern is a rock fight. I don’t even know what else to say about this one.
Illinois is coming off a bowl appearance in 2019 and will have revenge on their minds as they’ll feel like we stole one in Champaign this year. Nebraska is more talented and should win this game at home, but you never know.
We basically get back to back idle weeks with the actual idle week being 10/17 and then traveling to Rutgers. Hopefully this will allow us to regroup and get healthy before entering a gauntlet stretch which starts with.....
@ Ohio State. On Halloween. Okie dokes.
Penn State is the game Frost needs to win to have a “signature” win on his resume in my opinion. PSU is a weird team, enough elite talent to hang around with OSU on an annual basis, beats Michigan and Wisconsin type teams, but is clearly a step below the truly elite teams. Nebraska can win this game if it isn’t mentally shook from the game the previous week in Columbus.
@ Iowa I want to win more than any game on the schedule. I hate these guys. I don’t know that it’ll happen, but we looked much better the last 3/4’s of the game after the disaster of the first quarter this past Friday. But that has been Nebraska’s M.O. the past few years: can’t piece together a full game.
@ Wisconsin is a brutal game to have at the end of this stretch. I full expect Nebraska to lose this game just given the previous three games on the schedule, however they run an eerily similar style to Iowa and playing them back to back weeks should certainly help in preparation. I do wish there was either an Idle week between these, or at least one of them was at home.
Minnesota I fully expect to have a regression year in 2020. They’re talented, but as Wisconsin showed yesterday, they aren’t that great. They played 3 games against good teams this year and went 1-2, and probably should’ve lost the PSU game at home. They played 6 games in 2019 that were determined by 1 possession, and went 5-1 in those games. That typically regresses to the mean the following year.
Summary: Purdue is a must win to start the 2020 campaign. There’s going to be a LOT of grumbling if we drop that one at home. The non-conference schedule, while lacking “brand” names, should feature three really good tests for where this team is in 2020. I’d say you could even argue the non-conference games increase in difficulty week over week, starting with CMU and ending with Cincinnati. If we go through the first third of the season at 4-0, most of the media and fans might write this off, but I would see this as incredible progress for this team. I’d expect us to be 3-1 through this stretch most likely.
The next 3 games decide the fate of the season: @ NW, Illinois, @ Rutgers. Can we find our stride during these weeks? Can we stay healthy? The Huskers have struggled in road games (minus Maryland) the past few years- can Nebraska go on the road against a solid NW team and a bad Rutgers team and play complete games?
The last 5 games, while fun for fans, are brutal on the schedule. It really shows how deep the B1G has become that you look at the last 5 games of the 2020 schedule and can’t automatically write in a win for any of them. Nebraska needs to start by holding serve at home. Winning the PSU and Minnesota games at home would be a big sign of progress for this team in my opinion. We’ve gotten too used to losing games at Memorial Stadium the past few years. Time for that trend to reverse.
Overall, the schedule is built to go back to a bowl, while also challenge us and show where we need to improve. I’m not going to make game by game predictions or guess a final record- I’ll just say a bowl game is an absolute must in 2020. The schedule is challenging, probably more so than many people realize, but it will provide us with a good chance to see just how far this program has come under Frost, and where we need to improve the roster to make a jump in 20201.
9/5 Purdue
9/12 Central Michigan
9/19 South Dakota State
9/26 Cincinnati
10/3 @ Northwestern
10/10 Illinois
10/17 IDLE
10/24 @ Rutgers
10/31 @ Ohio State
11/7 Penn State
11/14 @ Iowa
11/21 @ Wisconsin
11/27 Minnesota
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Immediate thoughts: This schedule is sneakily brutal.
Purdue will be getting back Moore and beat us this year. This is a game Nebraska really needs to win to set the tone for 2020 as not only is it the season opener, but its also a conference game within the division. Huskers absolutely have to win this game.
Central Michigan is playing in the MAC Title game this upcoming week, and went from 1-11 in 2018 to 8-4 under Jim McElwain in his first year. They lost by 5 @ Miami (FL) and Wisconsin pounded them. Doesn’t matter the league, playing a team that is used to winning is never easy. Again Nebraska should win this game but depending on the outcome of Purdue, if we don’t come mentally ready to play, this game could be tighter than many hope for (see 2017 NIU for additional detail).
South Dakota State lost by a TD @ Minnesota this year (and really blew the game). I’ve watched a few of their games as I’m sure some of you have, they have a fun explosive offense and do a good job mixing up the play calls. This isn’t just a standard push-over Bethune Cookman type FCS game. They’ve got enough on their roster, especially with all the #NebraskaJacks, to make things competitive in Lincoln.
What if I told you Nebraska is playing a non-conference game against a team that won 11 games in 2018, is currently ranked in the top 20 in the country in the CFP rankings in 2019, is playing for its conference title game this weekend, and most likely a NY6 Bowl Bid to the Cotton Bowl if they win? And then what if I told you most Nebraska fans that I’ve seen on this board are chalking this game up as an automatic win next year? Wouldn’t make much sense right? Well that is the Cincinnati Bearcats, who will return All-AAC running back Michael Warren Jr as well as a third year starting QB in Desmond Ridder. This team’s defense is LEGIT, and will be led by All-AAC Safety James Wiggins, who is coming back from injury missing the 2019 season. Luke Fickell is the head coach and is plenty familiar with the Huskers from his days at Ohio State. This game scares the living bejesus out of me.
Every single game against Northwestern is a rock fight. I don’t even know what else to say about this one.
Illinois is coming off a bowl appearance in 2019 and will have revenge on their minds as they’ll feel like we stole one in Champaign this year. Nebraska is more talented and should win this game at home, but you never know.
We basically get back to back idle weeks with the actual idle week being 10/17 and then traveling to Rutgers. Hopefully this will allow us to regroup and get healthy before entering a gauntlet stretch which starts with.....
@ Ohio State. On Halloween. Okie dokes.
Penn State is the game Frost needs to win to have a “signature” win on his resume in my opinion. PSU is a weird team, enough elite talent to hang around with OSU on an annual basis, beats Michigan and Wisconsin type teams, but is clearly a step below the truly elite teams. Nebraska can win this game if it isn’t mentally shook from the game the previous week in Columbus.
@ Iowa I want to win more than any game on the schedule. I hate these guys. I don’t know that it’ll happen, but we looked much better the last 3/4’s of the game after the disaster of the first quarter this past Friday. But that has been Nebraska’s M.O. the past few years: can’t piece together a full game.
@ Wisconsin is a brutal game to have at the end of this stretch. I full expect Nebraska to lose this game just given the previous three games on the schedule, however they run an eerily similar style to Iowa and playing them back to back weeks should certainly help in preparation. I do wish there was either an Idle week between these, or at least one of them was at home.
Minnesota I fully expect to have a regression year in 2020. They’re talented, but as Wisconsin showed yesterday, they aren’t that great. They played 3 games against good teams this year and went 1-2, and probably should’ve lost the PSU game at home. They played 6 games in 2019 that were determined by 1 possession, and went 5-1 in those games. That typically regresses to the mean the following year.
Summary: Purdue is a must win to start the 2020 campaign. There’s going to be a LOT of grumbling if we drop that one at home. The non-conference schedule, while lacking “brand” names, should feature three really good tests for where this team is in 2020. I’d say you could even argue the non-conference games increase in difficulty week over week, starting with CMU and ending with Cincinnati. If we go through the first third of the season at 4-0, most of the media and fans might write this off, but I would see this as incredible progress for this team. I’d expect us to be 3-1 through this stretch most likely.
The next 3 games decide the fate of the season: @ NW, Illinois, @ Rutgers. Can we find our stride during these weeks? Can we stay healthy? The Huskers have struggled in road games (minus Maryland) the past few years- can Nebraska go on the road against a solid NW team and a bad Rutgers team and play complete games?
The last 5 games, while fun for fans, are brutal on the schedule. It really shows how deep the B1G has become that you look at the last 5 games of the 2020 schedule and can’t automatically write in a win for any of them. Nebraska needs to start by holding serve at home. Winning the PSU and Minnesota games at home would be a big sign of progress for this team in my opinion. We’ve gotten too used to losing games at Memorial Stadium the past few years. Time for that trend to reverse.
Overall, the schedule is built to go back to a bowl, while also challenge us and show where we need to improve. I’m not going to make game by game predictions or guess a final record- I’ll just say a bowl game is an absolute must in 2020. The schedule is challenging, probably more so than many people realize, but it will provide us with a good chance to see just how far this program has come under Frost, and where we need to improve the roster to make a jump in 20201.
