Nebraska football has path to CFB Playoffs laid out

There’s been a lot of talk about the Nebraska football team, the Big Ten and the playoffs recently. That’s despite the fact that most Husker fans don’t really see much reason to believe they’re going to the playoffs this year.

There is a chance. It’s true that Matt Rhule didn’t predict they would, that was Paul Finebaum nonsense. But there is a path for the Cornhuskers, though it’s quite complicated and more than a bit difficult.

Nebraska football has path to CFB Playoffs laid out 

Kelley Ford of Kford ratings put together a graphic that showed teams how many “mulligans” they could have and still make the playoffs. He also laid out how many upsets a team like Nebraska football would have to pull off in order to make the field.

The Huskers don’t get a Mulligan. In other words, they can’t lose a game they’re expected to win. But the good news is that they also don’t need to pull off an absurd number of upsets. 

Ford has the Cornhuskers needing to pull off two upsets in order to have a real path to the playoffs. That likely means they need to upend Ohio State and Wisconsin. Or Ohio State and Iowa. Or Ohio State and USC.

It could even be USC and Iowa, with Nebraska taking care of the rest of its schedule. A 10-2 record seems like about the worst the Huskers could do. Perhaps 9-3 if everything else goes exactly right.

NU is on the same tier as Wisconsin, Arizona and Oklahoma. That’s a decent group to be in. They’re just behind teams like USC, Michigan, Tennessee and Kansas, among others.

They’re also above programs like Auburn and Washington. It actually feels like this path to the playoffs is more optimistic than most Nebraska football fans could have hoped for. It’s yet another reason to keep a close eye on the Huskers this fall. It might be better than we all expect.