When talking about what to expect from the Nebraska football team in 2025, optimism abounds. From both the fanbase and most of the national analysts. And yet, there are signs that not everyone is bought in.
One such person that isn’t bought into the idea that the Cornhuskers will be even better than they were in 2024 is ESPN’s Bill Connelly. Connelly just put out his spring update of his SP+ rankings and Husker fans are not likely to be that happy about where he has Matt Rhule’s program.
Nebraska’s surprising SP+ ranking shows national respect still isn’t guaranteed
According to the analyst, the Nebraska football team comes in at a rather lowly No. 34 on his SP+ rankings. That might be a bit of a shock for Husker fans who were sort of expecting Rhule’s squad to be much closer to the Top 25.
Granted, these aren’t pre-season rankings. They aren’t based on what someone expects the Huskers to be when taking on its schedule. This is more a numbers based metrics look at how good they will be in certain aspects of the game.
Connelly said that the three biggest factors that go into these SP+ rankings are returning production, recent recruiting and recent history.
Connelly makes it clear what his rankings are not:
“SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and along those lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.”
So how does the Nebraska football team match up against the rest of the Big Ten?
- No. 1 Ohio State
- No. 3 Penn State
- No. 7 Oregon
- No. 10 Michigan
- No. 19 Illinois
- No. 23 Indiana
- No. 28 Iowa
- No. 30 USC
- No. 37 Wisconsin
- No. 39 Washington
- No. 40 Minnesota
- No. 45 Rutgers
- No. 51 UCLA
- No. 64 Michigan State
- No. 70 Maryland
- No. 87 Northwestern
- No. 101 Purdue
In other words, Connelly has the Huskers at No. 9 in the 18-team Big Ten. That’s certainly not terrible, but there’s also plenty to complain about. Iowa behind ahead of NU and Michigan being that far ahead are two.
Granted, because these are all analytics based, there isn’t really anything to argue. The Nebraska football can take care of business, especially against Iowa and Michigan and show the ESPN analyst his numbers were wrong at the end of the year.