Will, should, might, won't, coinflip: How Nebraska football's season could shake out

We’ve already made official predictions about who the Nebraska football team will beat and who they will lose to. However, those are admittedly unscientific. Our gut feelings, if you will.

While our predictions aren’t scientific, one analyst uses science and analytics, and all sorts of numbers put together to try and predict how the season will play out. And as it turns out, these analytics aren’t far off from what we chose, at least as far as the final record will go.

Kelly Ford of Kfordratings has made predictions for every FBS conference and every FBS team. Among those are game-by-game predictions for Nebraska football. While he doesn’t make official predictions, he puts each game into one of five categories.

Nebraska football chances of winning every game, according to Kfordratings

The first is the “will” category. This is a game where the rating system gives the Huskers an 81 percent chance or better of winning. There are two “will” "-win games on the schedule based on those analytics. UTEP (96 percent) and Northern Iowa (90 percent) are near sure bets.

The “should” category is next. This is any game where NU has a win probability of 61-to-80 percent. There are five such games in the “should win” category. Illinois (71 percent), Purdue (67 percent), Rutgers (62 percent), Indiana (67 percent) and UCLA (61 percent).

Then there are the “coinflip” games. As the name would imply, anything could happen. Either team could win. Colorado (59 percent win probability) and Wisconsin (50 percent) are coinflip games. 

It’s worth pointing out that if the Huskers improve as much as people hope, Kford sees a very real chance of Nebraska winning nine games right there. It’s always unlikely everything will go right (especially with the Huskers), but the numbers show there’s a chance.

Next is the “might” win games. These are the games NU is not expected to win, but the win probability isn’t an auto-loss. USC (31 percent probability) and Iowa (38 percent) fall into this category.

Finally, there is one game on the schedule that KFord believes is unwinnable for Nebraska football. The probability of winning against Ohio State is just 6 percent. For the record, Kford expects a 7-5 record for NU to be the most likely. That is, by the way, our official prediction.