Bowl eligible Nebraska football opens as slight dog vs Iowa Hawkeyes

With the sun up on this brilliant Sunday morning, it turns out it wasn’t a dream. Nebraska football is bowl-eligible for the first time since 2016.

But before they find out what bowl they’re going to in the next month or two, there is one more regular season game. And should the Huskers win that one, it would mean that it’s not just about getting the bare minimum wins in Year 2 of the Matt Rhule era.

Of course, in order to get to 7-5, they’re going to need to knock off an Iowa Hawkeyes team that has certainly been a thorn in the side of Nebraska football in the last decade. And if the Cornhuskers find a way to beat them, they’ll need to do it as an underdog. With the odds opening up this weekend, Rhule’s squad is +4.5 according to FanDuel and +4 according to Draft Kings.

Nebraska football open as dogs to Iowa Hawkeyes

There is a bright side here. The Huskers have already bucked a couple of trends with the win on Saturday afternoon. There was of course the streak of sitting at home for the postseason. There was also a long history of losses to the Badgers.

In fact, before yesterday, NU was on a skid that saw them lose 12 of the last 13 matchups against Wiscy. That included a 10 game losing streak to Wisconsin. There’s a new streak now.

Nebraska football has lost eight of the last nine matchups against the Iowa Hawkeyes in a series the Huskers used to dominate. Perhaps they can find a way to reverse that curse on Black Friday as well.