The college football world is in a holding pattern and has nothing to talk about except how good a team or some teams will be once the fall rolls around. One of the biggest questions surrounding the Nebraska football team is whether it will even be better than it was in 2024 or 2025. However, most analysts believe it simply has to be better to keep Husker fans happy. How good? The standard reply is "significantly better than Iowa or Minnesota."
The problem with that statement is that while Cornhusker fans consider both programs to be low bars, they're both in better places than NU has been for several years. Neither program wins 10, 11, or 12 games very often, but their fans know what to expect and that every once in a while they'll have a very good season. And their fans know if there's one school Minnesota and Iowa can beat, it's Nebraska.
Barrels and barrels of ink have been written about how Iowa has dominated Nebraska. Still, for some reason, there's been very little attention paid to what PJ Fleck and Minnesota have done to the Huskers since the Golden Gophers' head coach started rowing the boat in Minneapolis.
In fact, it's not hard to credit the Cornhuskers for keeping PJ Fleck employed. His record in Minnesota is far from great. 66-44 isn't terrible, but he's just 29-30 vs. the Big Ten. The truly embarrassing part is that Fleck's record vs the conference would be downright pitiful if not for Nebraska.
Matt Rhule has Nebraska football chasing a standard PJ Fleck keeps exposing
The Gophers' head coach is a sterling 7-1 against the Huskers. Consider his record at Minny: 59-43 and 22-29 in the Big Ten. His job might be in jeopardy. Instead, he signed another extension this winter that will see him earn a nice little annual bonus. Fleck is just 1-8 vs Iowa. 1-3 vs Penn State. Only 5-4 vs Wisconsin and 0-4 against Michigan.
Over the course of his career, Fleck has had to have absurdly good seasons. He went 13-1 at Western Michigan and 11-2 with the Gophers in 2019. Outside of that, he's been a phenomenally average coach. He's definitely someone Nebraska should be all that excited about to match, pound-for-pound.
And yet, at the moment, the only Husker coach to beat him is Scott Frost. If that isn't irony, then irony doesn't exist. It's not just that Fleck is a good coach who somehow figures out the Cornhuskers' secret sauce; it's that there rarely seems to be an answer for why he has NU's number so completely.
So far, Matt Rhule has been lucky enough to face off against Minnesota once in his three years in Lincoln. And yet, when the two coaches did go head-to-head, Fleck thoroughly throttled an NU squad that was in the Top 25 and looked poised to really take off.
Perhaps the good news is that the luck (and oddity) of the expanded Big Ten draw is that Nebraska won't face PJ Fleck this coming season. If they did, the Huskers would almost certainly be considered the favorite in that game. And yet, the Golden Gophers are likely wishing they had that game on the schedule, and Rhule is happy the old B1G West rival isn't on deck.
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