This Matt Rhule-Kirk Ferentz stat is beyond humiliating for Nebraska fans

Year 3 was the season that Matt Rhule turned things around at Temple and at Baylor, but that Year 3 magic didn’t come with him to Lincoln. Rhule closed out the 2025 regular season at Memorial Stadium on Friday with a 40-16 loss to Iowa to fall to 7-5, leading the Cornhuskers to back-to-back bowl games for the first time since the program made nine-straight bowl games between 2008 and 2016. 

However, in the process, Rhule fell to 2-10 in the month of November since taking over at Nebraska. Rhule called that record “unacceptable” in his postgame press conference, though it’s not the most humiliating stat to come out of Friday’s blowout loss to Kirk Ferentz’s Hawkeyes. 

With the victory, Ferentz passed Rhule, his predecessor Scott Frost, and his predecessor Mike Riley for the second-most Big Ten wins at Memorial Stadium. Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011, and Bo Pelini racked up 12 Big Ten home victories before his tenure came to an end in 2016. Rhule, Frost, and Riley all have six, which Riley, like Rhule, managed in three seasons while Frost needed five years to hit that mark. 

Ferentz has been at Iowa for 27 years and has played at Memorial Stadium eight times since joining the conference. He is 7-1 on the road against the Huskers in conference play and has won 10 of the last 11 meetings between the two teams. 

Matt Rhule has to end Kirk Ferentz’s dominance at Memorial Stadium

Rhule won’t get another opportunity to beat Iowa at home until 2027, but his team will face the Hawkeyes in Des Moines next year. Rhule is now 0-3 against Iowa and 19-18 at Nebraska overall. Yet, as rumors swirled about the former Nittany Lions linebacker emerging as a candidate to replace James Franklin in Happy Valley, Nebraska handed Rhule a two-year contract extension to tie him to the program until 2032. 

He’s led Nebraska back to a level of competence that it frankly hasn’t seen since the Bo Pelini era, and that’s meaningful for a program that was in the wilderness for so long. However, Year 3 ended on an incredibly sour note. 

Dylan Raiola’s season-ending injury in the Huskers’ Week 10 loss to USC helped to derail Nebraska down the stretch, though in losses to Penn State and Iowa to close out the season, the defense was the major issue. 

Last offseason, Nebraska lost nearly all of its starting defensive linemen, along with defensive coordinator Tony White, and Rhule was never able to overcome those deficiencies. Now, after Dayton Raiola’s de-commitment from the program, he faces an offseason that could see him lose his former five-star QB.