As the old saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” However, when it comes to how good the Nebraska football team might be, critical fans who came away annoyed by an ugly first half against Ohio might not realize just how pretty the Huskers really look with that 1-0 record. For ESPN’s FPI ratings, it was love at first … win.
Bill Connelly’s signature metric, which helps him determine how good a team is and how well they’ll finish the season, believes that their 49-21 win over the Bobcats on Saturday was plenty impressive. In fact, those metrics saw the Huskers make one of the biggest jumps of the week, from well outside the Top 25 to well inside it.
Nebraska fans who wondered whether Nebraska might lose their home opener when they went into halftime with a minuscule 14-13 lead might be skeptical that they’re among the best 25 teams in the country, according to ESPN’s rating system. And yet, the win moved them from No. 30 to No. 23, a seven-spot jump.
Big Red now has an 11.3 FPI and is projected to win about 7.5 games and lose 4.5. While Husker fans would rather not see another 7-6 season, a 7-5 regular season and a bowl win would be a notable improvement, especially given a difficult Big Ten schedule.
Nebraska football rises to No. 23 as ESPN FPI rewards dominant second half against Ohio
For this week, the number of spots and the improvement Nebraska showed belie worries from plenty of NU fans that head coach Matt Rhule’s squad didn’t play particularly well against an under-talented MAC team.
The seven-spot jump matches the teams that also leaped into the No. 24 and No. 25 spots in this week’s ESPN FPI. Both Utah and Virginia were solidly outside the Top 25 when Week 1 began. Only Pittsburgh had a bigger jump, as they moved up to No 22 after entering the week at No. 36 in the ratings.
The Huskers are currently rated as the seventh-best team in the Big Ten. That’s even quite a bit higher than our own conference Power Rankings, which pegged them as the 10th-best program in the B1G.
It’s unlikely Nebraska will see a similar jump in the ESPN FPI ratings next week, even if they win big. On Saturday evening, they’ll face off against a Bowling Green team that’s ranked as the 123rd team out of 138 FBS programs.
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