Nebraska Football: Huskers open as heavy dogs against Purdue

The Nebraska football team has had what can only be described as a disastrous season when it comes to the betting lines. That might not bode all that well for the Huskers when it comes to this week’s opening line against the Purdue Boilermakers. For just the second time this season, the Cornhuskers start the week as an underdog.

In fact, the Nebraska football team is a bigger underdog than they’ve been all season, as the first lines popped up on Sunday evening, with FanDuel being among those that have the Huskers at +13.5 against Purdue. The previous high water mark when it came to being underdogs in a game came against Oklahoma who were favored by 10.5 by the end of that week.

Of course, the Sooners actually started out as bigger favorites than Purdue, but for whatever reason, the line shrank quickly. Then Oklahoma won by 35 points.

So does that bode poorly for the Huskers? It might. Nebraska might have evened its record straight up on Friday night against the Scarlet Knights, but it failed to cover a rather modest 3-point spread and because of that, fell to 1-5 on the season against the spread.

There are those that think Purdue opening at -13.5 is much too big, considering they are coming off a two-point win against Maryland. Of course, the Boilermakers took care of business against a Minnesota team that looked like it was going to tear through the Big Ten West before that contest.

There’s also the fact that while the Huskers are 2-1 in the conference and tied for the Big Ten West lead, their wins were against Indiana and Rutgers, two of the worst teams in the conference. All of that seems to go into the Boilermakers opening the week as very strong favorites.

It will be interesting to see just how much the line shifts toward the Nebraska football team as the week goes on.