Nebraska

2024 College football odds: Take Nebraska, Miami in Week 1; other best bets

Published

2 years ago

August 28, 2024

Press Room

2024 College football odds: Take Nebraska, Miami in Week 1; other best bets

Geoff Schwartz

FOX Sports Betting Analyst

College football is so back.

The entire country is playing this weekend, meaning every single team is on the field. However, while that might increase the urge to wager heavily, I suggest being judicious with your Week 1 wagers, as teams with new rosters will see their first time on the field together.

Let’s get into my picks for Week 1.

(All times ET)

UTEP @ Nebraska -27.5 (3:30 p.m., FOX)

I love this spot for the Cornhuskers, who are looking to win their opening weekend contest for the first time since 2019.

Matt Rhule is entering his second season at Nebraska with high expectations, after the Cornhuskers added five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola to a team that’s returning a ton of production. Nebraska returns speedsters at wide receiver, quality running backs and four of five offensive linemen.

In short, the offense will be better with a competent quarterback who doesn’t turn the ball over and an offensive line that can block.

Nebraska’s defense returns eight starters off a unit that was fantastic last season. In fact, it was seventh in rushing defense and 27th in passing defense. The D does an outstanding job of limiting explosive plays as well.

UTEP is coming to Lincoln with everything new — a new head coach with new players on offense and defense — and I anticipate it’s going to be a struggle for the Miners. Their offense is mostly composed of transfer players from Austin Peay, who followed new head coach Scotty Walden and a brand new offensive line. All five starters from last season are gone and playing on the road at Nebraska in this unit’s first start is a recipe for disaster.

UTEP returns only three starters on defense and that unit is going to be tested by Nebraska’s size and length.

Also, worth noting is Rhule’s record as a head coach in his second season at a program. After winning two games at Temple in 2013, his 2014 Temple squad opened the season with a 37-7 win at Vanderbilt. While at Baylor, Rhule’s squad opened his second season with a 55-27 win against Abilene Christian after winning just a single game the year before.

We’ve seen this before from Rhule’s teams, and I expect a big win to start Year 2 against an inferior opponent.

PICK: Nebraska (-27.5) to win by more than 27 points

Can Nebraska, Michigan challenge Ohio State in the Big Ten?

Miami @ Florida +3 (3:30 p.m., FOX)

Call me a Mario Cristobal homer, but I believe in this Miami Hurricanes team. The Miami roster has finally matured in the trenches after a few years of building via high school recruiting. The Hurricanes were able to add quarterback Cam Ward and running back Damien Martinez via the portal to complete their offense.

However, Miami’s defense was much improved in 2023, but there are question marks in the secondary this season that could hinder its success against the Gators. Florida’s wide receivers are the best unit on its offense, but the Gators will need their offensive line to step up and give quarterback Graham Mertz time to throw. The Florida offensive line allowed a sack on 10% of pass attempts last season, ranking near the bottom in the country.

But back to Miami.

Whenever I talk positively about the Hurricanes, the response is always the same: “What about Mario Cristobal and his game management?”

Well, that’s a concern … against Cal in Berkeley or when they are playing a three-win team.

I’m not concerned about a Cristobal team in a big game. I saw him, at Oregon, beat Ohio State at The Shoe with a limited quarterback and missing his best pass rusher. His Ducks team beat a top-10 Utah team to win the Pac-12 in 2019, followed by a Rose Bowl win against Wisconsin.

This Miami team has the talent of those Ducks teams, and the Canes will be focused for this game.

PICK: Miami (-3) to lose by fewer than 3 points or win outright

QUICK HITTERS

Idaho @ Oregon Over 62.5 (7:30 p.m., Big Ten Network)

Oregon might score 63 points by itself.

Oregon has played two FCS programs under Dan Lanning and the Ducks scored 70 against Eastern Washington and 81 against Portland State. Now, Idaho is better than those programs, but this is about the Ducks offense. It is even more talented than the last two seasons, with players all over the two-deep looking to make an impact on the field.

When the Ducks eventually go to their second string quarterback, the offense will not miss a beat. Dante Moore is a former five-star quarterback and the future of the program. The Ducks offense will look to score and score and score when Moore comes into the game.

PICK: Over 62.5 points scored

Illinois State @ Iowa -22.5 (noon, Big Ten Network)

This number is disrespectful to Iowa.

I get it folks — Iowa’s offense was poor last season. But that was last season.

This season, Iowa has a new offensive coordinator, a healthy quarterback and a much better offensive line. Also, after hearing all about how awful their offense was all offseason, I’d imagine the Hawkeyes will look to dominate on that side of the ball this weekend.

Illinois State finished 6-5 last season and is no FCS juggernaut. They will be lucky to score a touchdown and even with that score, I think Iowa gets into the 30s.

Remember, the Hawkeyes scored 41 against Western Michigan last season.

PICK: Iowa (-22.5) to win by more than 22 points

Follow along with FOX Sports for the latest news on the NFL and other sports.

Geoff Schwartz is an NFL analyst for FOX Sports. He played eight seasons in the NFL for five different teams. He started at right tackle for the University of Oregon for three seasons and was a second-team All-Pac-12 selection his senior year. Follow him on Twitter @GeoffSchwartz.

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Nebraska

Bullerman follows a family legacy into Nebraska’s prairies

Published

6 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Press Room

Bullerman follows a family legacy into Nebraska’s prairies

Emma Bullerman is spending her summer riding around in fields with her dad, and she’s thrilled about it. It’s not just for fun, either — she’s interning for the Prairie Plains Resource Institute and working alongside her father to conserve Nebraska grasslands.

“Prairie Plains has literally been in my life since I was born. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a grasslands nepo baby,” Bullerman said. “My dad is the restoration director, so even as a kid I would be out helping him in the field.”

Today, Emma is taking a more active role in aiding her dad’s work to restore native prairies.

“A lot of my summer will be in the truck with him driving across Nebraska to collect the native grassland seeds that we put into our restoration sites,” she said. “Basically, I’m just learning the ropes of everything that goes into grassland restoration.”

As a teen, Bullerman thought she wanted to do anything but follow her dad’s footsteps. Eventually, a few stalled paths helped her rediscover her love for her hometown.

“In high school and coming into college, I really thought I wanted to leave Nebraska and do something totally different from my dad,” she said. “I tried a few other directions, but pretty quickly could tell that I wasn’t passionate about them. I took a semester off, and then my boss at Prairie Plains reached out about helping with social media.”

It didn’t take long for Bullerman to catch the bug for conservation work and switch her major to fisheries and wildlife, the same degree program her father graduated from in 1995. In fact, she is a fourth-generation Husker with strong ties to ag and food science. Her grandfather is Dr. Lloyd Bullerman, a former a professor of food science, microbiology and food safety at the university, and her aunt studied food science at NU as well.

Getting back to Prairie Plains in her early college years helped Bullerman realize that she, too, had a calling toward this field.

“Being out in the field with my dad one day, I had a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I’ve been looking for. This is what I want to do.’ Finding my way back has been really, really beautiful.”

Working with her dad, she’s is feeling better than ever about her direction, her hometown and her future in Nebraska.

“Doing this work and studying at UNL has given me a whole new perspective on the state,” she said. “I used to be someone who was like, ‘I want to get out of here after I graduate.’ Restoring prairies and traveling all over Nebraska has helped me see that it’s so beautiful here, I just didn’t take the time to see it before.”

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Nebraska

Data centers take center stage at North Omaha townhall

Published

16 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Press Room

Data centers take center stage at North Omaha townhall

The future of data centers in Nebraska took center stage at a North Omaha town hall Thursday evening.

The event was hosted by State Sens. Terrell McKinney and Ashlei Spivey, who alongside Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh sponsored a bill in the Nebraska Legislature that looked to help regulate data centers.

Parts of their bill were adopted and passed in LB1010, which requires reports on annual power usage, water usage and ownership.

“Having this passed in a package showed a lot of bipartisan work,” Spivey told a crowd of attendees at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.

The proposed regulations were shaped in part by Bold Nebraska, an advocacy group focused on eminent domain and clean energy. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, said before the bill passed there were “zero laws on the books” to address a boom in data centers.

“If one is coming into the community, we wanted to make sure that there were some basic transparency things in place,” Kleeb said.

Political discussions around data centers heated up in recent months following reporting by the Flatwater Free Press that showed Google is considering a data center in Nebraska that could require more than three times the amount of power the entire city of Lincoln uses at peak demand in the summer.

The Nebraska Legislature recently passed another bill, LB1261, that allows private developers to build and own power plants to serve a large industrial customer, including data centers. That bill was proposed by the governor’s office and celebrated by Gov. Jim Pillen.

“Our state is once again taking a bold and strategic step – one that will create an environment that attracts business and multibillion dollar investment, while legally preserving Nebraska’s unique and consumer-friendly public power model,” Pillen said at the time.

At Thursday’s town hall, McKinney called LB1261 “the bogeyman bill.”

“It’s a bill that the governor pushed through the legislature to allow for data centers to create their own power,” McKinney said. “It’s a bill that I stood on the floor and said this is going to harm our communities.”

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Nebraska

Hundreds lose power across southeast Nebraska after Thursday morning storm

Published

1 day ago

June 11, 2026

Press Room

Hundreds lose power across southeast Nebraska after Thursday morning storm

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Hundreds of people are without power in southeast Nebraska after a severe storm passed through Thursday morning.

The Lincoln Electric System outage map showed 115 customers without power across the city at 11:36 a.m.

Norris Public Power District’s outage map also shows 45 customers affected by the storm. As of 11:36 a.m., there were nine active outages.

According to the Nebraska Public Power District outage map, 657 customers were affected by the storm. Most of the affected customers were near Plattsmouth in southeast Nebraska. As of 11:37 a.m., 27 customers remain without power.

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