The Nebraska football team is officially on ‘Bowl Game Watch’ after their win over Northwestern and they’re slightly favored to get W number 5 next week.
Last week, Matt Rhule made it clear that he’s not counting Nebraska football wins and how many they need to make the postseason. He said that he wants his coaches and players to focus on “going 1-0 every week.” That’s the correct approach for the Huskers’ headman. That doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t count down to six wins.
Sitting at 4-3 after a 17-9 win over Northwestern, the next game in the road to six wins might be the most challenging of the little four-game swing that started in the matchup against Illinois. Next week, it’s time to host the Purdue Boilermakers and the opening odds has the Nebraska football team as slight favorites.
FanDuel has the Huskers as 3.5-point favorites on Sunday morning while DraftKings has them favored by 4 over the Boilermakers. A point spread that small usually indicates that the home field plays a big part in who is the favorite.
The main reason to worry about Purdue more than Northwestern or Illinois? The Boilermakers have some impressive playmakers on offense. Their weakness is their defense, and it’s still unclear if Nebraska football has gotten things straightened out enough offensively to take advantage of that.
Nebraska football favored over Purdue
Should the Nebraska football team manage to cover that spread, or even just win, it would have the Huskers not only 5-3 in the conference but 3-2 in the Big Ten West. That would mean the Huskers would need to only get one more win in four more tries.
Certainly not a given considering how the offense has played this year, but the kind of odds you love to see if you’re a Husker fan.
For what’s it worth, ESPN analytics has Nebraska football winning the game against Purdue on Saturday, with a 52 percent chance of victory.