Nebraska Football: Predicting the Huskers’ 2022 schedule

The Nebraska football team’s schedule has long been billed as quite a bit easier than what it was in 2021. That’s one of the many reasons why people think the Huskers will have it pretty easy to get six wins.

Of course, if the Cornhuskers are going to get to six wins, their season opener against a Northwestern squad that went 3-9 a year ago is a must-win.

There are two factors that could mean it won’t be. The first is that Pat Fitzgerald generally doesn’t have two bad seasons in a row. In fact, 2013 and 2014 are the only seasons where he posted a losing record in consecutive years.

The last time Northwestern posted a 3-9 record under Fitzgerald, it turned around the next year and went 7-2.

There’s also the fact that the Huskers have been very slow starters to the season under Scott Frost. The team is just 1-3 with the former NU signal caller at the helm in season openers. That one win? A less than impressive 35-21 win over South Alabama that saw Nebraska leading just 14-7 at the half.

So does that mean I think Northwestern can pull off the upset? They certainly can, but I don’t think they will. The Wildcats just don’t have much in the way of weapons on offense. While they are strong on both the offensive and defensive line, there’s just not much there at the skill positions.

Northwestern hasn’t even named it’s starting quarterback and while that can be a bad thing for opponents on occasion, this time around the quarterback battle is between Ryan Hillinksi (who had the worst QB rating on the team a year ago) and sophomore Brendan Sullivan who has never taken a college snap.

I think the Nebraska football team’s defense gets the edge, even as the offense gets off a bit clunky with all these new parts trying to mesh under some new coaches.

Nebraska 20, Northwestern 13 (Huskers are 1-0)