Heading into the 2026 season, there are plenty of questions about Nebraska football. One of the biggest is how good Anthony Colandrea will be. The star quarterback is coming off a Mountain West Conference Player of the Year campaign, but most experts aren’t sure how that will translate to the Big Ten.
A recent example comes in ESPN’s Bill Connelly’s 2026 conference preview. He laid out a number of predictions and picks, and with Colandrea made several comments that show he’s interested in seeing what the Huskers’ new quarterback can do, though he’s not expecting as big a season as he had at UNLV.
One part of Connelly’s work that shows how little faith he has in Colandrea was the list of his 10 favorite transfers. The ESPN analyst listed two quarterbacks near the top of that list in Wisconsin’s Colton Joseph and Indiana’s Josh Hoover. Both effective quarterbacks for their teams in 2025, neither came away with a Player of the Year trophy. And yet, the Nebraska QB isn’t even in the Top 10, never mind near the top of the list.
Connelly believes the former UNLV quarterback could be interesting to watch. He also thinks there’s a chance the Huskers could be better than most people expect. As long as the offense comes together and Colandrea can limit his mistakes.
Anthony Colandrea’s big-play upside gives Nebraska football a fascinating question
“Colandrea really is fun. He has pretty scramble-heavy tendencies, but he doesn't take nearly as many sacks as Raiola, and he was a far better big-play seeker last season, albeit in a conference with worse defenses than the Big Ten's.”
“His nine career multi-INT games suggest he can trust his own abilities too much at times, but he'll have fun with receivers Nyziah Hunter and Jacory Barney Jr. With 1,400-yard rusher Emmett Johnson off to the pros, a couple of sophomores (Mekhi Nelson and Isaiah Mozee) will need to take charge at RB, but with three returning linemen and some exciting additions up front -- guards Brendan Black (Iowa State) and Paul Mubenga (LSU) and tackle Tree Babalade (South Carolina) -- the line should pave the way nicely.”
In the end, the real issue won’t be Colandrea as much as it will be how much Rob Aurich can turn a defense that went from a strength to a weakness last year, back into a strength. If the new Nebraska defensive coordinator can get the defense back to where it was under Tony White, Anthony Colandrea might not have nearly the mountain to climb in order to make the Nebraska Cornhuskers into a very solid team.
Add us as a preferred source on Google