Nebraska
Family fights for continued awareness of dyslexia, grateful for eight years of Nebraska legislation • Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — Norah Schmidt loves reading, particularly dystopia and romance novels, but the high school senior recalls when that wasn’t always the case because of a learning disability: dyslexia.
Norah, 17, remembers being pulled out of class for timed readings where staff would hold a stopwatch and track how quickly she could read and if she was close to her peers.
“The first six years of school, K through 5, were hard,” Norah told the Nebraska Examiner this summer. “I didn’t know what I was doing, reading in fifth grade at a third grade level, reading my first book in fifth grade. It’s improved since but still hard.”
Close to graduation and looking ahead to college, Norah said she reads whenever she gets the chance now, after years of an uphill climb of interventions in part aided by legislation and advocacy from Norah’s parents in Lincoln Public Schools.
Legislation back to 2017
State lawmakers have passed multiple bills since 2017 to improve services for students with dyslexia and require intensive reading interventions in each of Nebraska’s 244 school districts.
“I do hope that with all this going through, students who are coming into schools don’t have to go through things I did,” Norah said of the legislation.
State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn has been heavily involved in legislative efforts regarding dyslexia, including her support this year for Fremont State Sen. Lynne Walz’s Legislative Bill 1284. That package contained two reading proposals from Linehan, which she said was her last “rah rah” before being term-limited out of the Legislature:
- LB 1253, to award up to $500,000 in grants to Nebraska companies researching artificial-intelligence-based writing assistance models for students with dyslexia.
- LB 1254, to set aside $2 million over three years for reading improvement mentorship programs and to employ regional coaches to train teachers in K-3 how to teach reading.
Linehan, who has dyslexia, introduced LB 651 in 2017 during her first year as a state senator to provide accelerated reading interventions for students in grades K-3.
Known as the Nebraska Reading Improvement Act, any student who exhibited a reading deficiency would have received an individual reading improvement plan. Students would have needed to show sufficient reading skills to move on to fourth grade or be held back for a year.
Linehan said that extra support is critical, partially to prevent behavioral issues for students who will “hate school because they don’t want to be embarrassed.”
“They don’t want to have to stand up and be asked to read a book, and they can’t, so they throw the book because ‘I’d rather be in trouble than be embarrassed and have my friends make fun of me,’” Linehan said.
School tour informed legislation
At LB 651’s hearing, superintendents, teachers and school members from various school districts expressed concern, particularly with retaining students in the third grade.
Then-State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln, who sat on the Education Committee along with Linehan, also opposed the measure, which later stalled during floor debate for the year.
But a separate bill, LB 645 from Pansing Brooks, did pass in 2017 to define dyslexia in state law. Linehan supported the change.
Pansing Brooks brought the bill on behalf of her brother and cousin, who have dyslexia, and her mother, a former Lincoln Board of Education member who pushed for dyslexia-related services.
Linehan and Pansing Brooks have opposing political ideologies, but they sought to find a path forward in the fall of 2017 by touring more than a dozen schools together statewide to gather additional perspectives from educators and students, which informed new legislation to improve literacy.
“The education community could blow me off because I was not a supporter of the teachers union. I was a very conservative member. They could have run me over,” Linehan said. “They could not run over Patty — her willingness, my determination, and just keep going back.”
Pansing Brooks returned in 2018 with LB 1052, to update a dyslexia-focused guide for educators and require teacher training. And Linehan amended a revised version of her previous bill into LB 1081, which didn’t include holding students back. Both passed overwhelmingly.
Linehan’s proposal established three reading assessments for all students in grades K-3 each academic year, as well as supplemental interventions for those young students who have a reading deficiency.
“I felt like we could really work stronger together, and she’s a force, there’s no question,” Pansing Brooks said this summer.
In 2023, Linehan proposed LB 298, which also passed. It requires schools to track how many students have been tested for a specific learning disability and how many have a reading issue.
Districts must report that information annually by July 1 to the Nebraska Department of Education, which must compile the information and send a public report to the Legislature each year no later than Sept. 1.
I do hope that with all this going through, students who are coming into schools don’t have to go through things I did.
– Norah Schmidt of Lincoln, a high school senior who has dyslexia
‘I felt like Alice in Wonderland’
Heather Schmidt, Norah’s mother, recalled some of her own frustrations prior to that legislation, when Norah was in elementary school. School staff would show Norah’s parents charts “of why everything’s fine.” When Heather told them that everything wasn’t fine and that Norah was struggling, she said she was told to look at the chart in a different way.
“When we first started down this path, I honestly, in the meetings, felt like Alice in Wonderland just trying to figure out how to get home, and everybody was telling me about eight, nine other things that didn’t make sense,” Heather Schmidt recalled.
For some of Norah’s classes, she would have a sheet to track how many books she read each week. Though she spent hours reading, she couldn’t reach the goal, yet her mom would still sign the assignment, knowing the effort that Norah had put in.
Norah said she is still learning to cope with dyslexia and how to study, but an AI-focused tool created by local university students, Dyslexico, is helping to cut her study time in half.
“Instead of getting frustrated and shutting her Chromebook and pushing it away, she just kept going and writing, kept studying,” Heather Schmidt said. “You’d see her just kind of wilt as if she was defeated [before].”
Support with artificial intelligence
Dyslexico started in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Raikes School. Key team members Bridget Peterkin and Tristan Curd, who graduated in May, testified at a legislative hearing in February in support of Linehan’s grant program in LB 1253.
The online program is powered through AI but finds what its creators have described as a middle ground compared to other grammar check software.
Peterkin said when Dyslexico began, it all felt very theoretical, but support and excitement from Linehan and others left the team “blown away.”
Curd said this summer that Dyslexico was looking to start new pilot programs with schools. He said getting a grant could help the team improve its services for the community.
“It’s super exciting because at its core, it will help us keep Dyslexico going,” Curd said.
Linehan said the student team amazed her because they understood dyslexia and that people who have it are capable and intelligent, but just struggle to read or write.
The grant applications are due to the Nebraska Department of Education by Sept. 6.
‘We need to be proactive’
Elizabeth Tegtmeier, president of the State Board of Education, which oversees the Education Department, said that all students need to be supported. She said the State Board should expect struggling students to receive interventions but doesn’t need to wait for legislation.
“We’re in harmony as far as student literacy, and I just think that this particular facet of literacy needs to rise to the surface,” Tegtmeier said of the State Board.
Tegtmeier said she also has a child who struggles to read and found herself, like Heather Schmidt, supplementing the assistance her school provided and seeking additional resources.
“We need to be proactive, not wait until students have failed,” Tegtmeier said. “That affects their self-esteem. It affects their ability to work in the classroom if we wait for them to fail before we offer them assistance.”
‘Swimming upstream’
Heather and Norah Schmidt haven’t always been successful in finding advocates within Lincoln Public Schools, they said, but they recently found support in Sara Jones, LPS’ student services supervisor, and Adriana Martinez, Lincoln Southeast High School’s English Department chair, who was one of Norah’s teachers last year.
Norah said Martinez gave her as much time as she needed on assignments and would break lessons down in a way she could understand, tailored to her learning style.
Martinez said that she regularly tailors support to her students’ needs and that the “bare minimum” for teachers is to read and understand a student’s learning accommodations as part of their Section 504 plan or individualized education plan.
“Once I have a good understanding of my kids, we have pretty open conversations with what they need to feel successful,” Martinez said.
Jones said that everyone at LPS wants students to succeed and that accommodations are available to students, but she acknowledged it’s a “tough avenue to fight, like swimming upstream,” at times.
“When you find that one little gem that might work, it’s such a good feeling,” Jones said.
Throughout her 12 years in special education, Jones said, it’s almost hard to describe how students change once the right tool is put in front of them. She said she sometimes runs into former students in the community and is able to see how the interventions have paid off.
“It’s just so heartwarming,” Jones said. “Even if it’s just one kid.”
Martinez said teachers should “walk with humility” and understand that they don’t know everything and need to be lifelong learners.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers have seen that policies don’t always catch students’ needs, Martinez explained. She said many teachers are adapting and being more accessible.
“I think the more that students see teachers as collaborators for their learning,” Martinez said, “the better that we can make their education.”
‘We need to keep pushing harder’
Norah said more education for teachers on dyslexia will be helpful, as some don’t know what it is. She hopes future students don’t have to wait for help as long as her family did.
“I’m glad it’s happening now rather than 10 years down the line,” Norah said.
Her mother worries that momentum surrounding dyslexia needs could slow down with Linehan leaving the Legislature after this year.
“I hope we’re not going to be left without moving forward,” Heather Schmidt said. “I feel like they’ve made a lot of inroads, just even with the awareness level, but we need to keep pushing harder.”
Linehan said that with the accountability measures in place and a bigger focus on phonics and reading comprehension, she sees the work continuing.
“I may no longer be in the Legislature, but I will still pay attention. It is too important,” Linehan said. “We can’t let bright, capable people not get an education because they struggle to read at an early age.”
A legislative history on dyslexia and reading
At least five new laws have taken effect related to dyslexia since 2017, led by former State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln and State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn.
- 2018: LB 1081 (Education Committee, with LB 651 from Linehan) — Established the Nebraska Reading Improvement Act, which encouraged school boards to develop reading instruction and intervention policies and required approved reading assessments to be given to students three times each school year plus supplemental interventions for students who have a reading deficiency. Passed 46-1.
- 2023: LB 298 (Linehan) — Required school districts to report how many students have been tested for a specific learning disability (including characteristics of dyslexia), are identified as having a reading issue and who have shown improvement. Passed 44-0.
- 2024: LB 1284 (State Sen. Lynne Walz of Fremont, with LB 1253 and LB 1254 from Linehan) — Established the $500,000 Dyslexia Research Grant Program for Nebraska companies researching the use of artificial-intelligence-based writing assistance for students with dyslexia. The Nebraska Department of Education is also required to develop and implement a professional learning system for evidence-based reading instruction for teachers who teach children up to third grade how to read. Passed 42-0.
BRADY, Nebraska – In the Sandhills of Nebraska, some grazing pastures look more like the Sahara Desert. The Morrill Fire — the largest wildfire in Nebraska history — scorched vast stretches of land in mid-March.
Farmers and ranchers across western Nebraska are now trying to recover, but severe drought conditions are making matters worse.
“The wind was screaming, maybe 70 mph. They said in 10 minutes it traveled 14 miles,” said Joe Van Newkirk, owner of Van Newkirk Herefords Ranch. “We heard that there was a fire in Angora, which is about 50 miles north-west of our headquarters, we just kind of looked at the map and there was just no way that this place was not going to get burned.”
The ranch, located in Oshkosh, Nebraska, has been in the Van Newkirk family for 140 years. The operation holds an annual bull sale, selling 250 to 300 bulls to ranches across the country.
Thankfully, the Van Newkirk home was spared. It sits miles away from grazing pastures that are now almost unrecognizable after the fire.
Before and after the Morrill Fire at Van Newkirk Herefords (Van Newkirk Herefords)
“We didn’t have any cattle on here, or any buildings to speak of. So we were very lucky in that respect,” said Van Newkirk. Around a third of his summer range burned in the fire.
LARGEST WILDFIRE IN NEBRASKA HISTORY LEAVES 1 DEAD, SCORCHES OVER 640,000 ACRES AS CONDITIONS BEGIN TO EASE
There is still extensive cleanup work ahead. Livestock watering tanks are now completely filled with sand.
“We could probably come up here and shovel them out but who says it’s not going to blow right back in,” said Van Newkirk. “We’re gonna let this country heal, let the wind go down. Maybe next spring, winter, we’ll come up here and fix this stuff.”
While surveying the ranch, Van Newkirk said he recently noticed the first signs of improvement since the fires erupted in March.
“This fire was the 13th, 14th of March, and by the 1st of May, it didn’t look a whole lot different up here. The grass hadn’t started,” he said. “But just since then, four or five days, it’s made a difference. We haven’t received any moisture to speak of.”
The watering tanks are filled with sand in the grazing pastures of Van Newkirk Herefords. (Kailey Schuyler )
The Morill fire burned 642,029 acres, according to NOAA. Severe drought conditions are compounding the damage. The latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows more than 90% of Nebraska is experiencing drought, with growing portions of the state classified under severe, extreme and exceptional drought conditions.
But the Morrill Fire was not the only wildfire burning in Nebraska at the time.
“It burned down the shop, and my corrals, and all the hay in my yard ended up going,” said Owen Johnson, Operator of Bearded Lady LLC.
The Cottonwood Fire also tore through Nebraska, scorching 129,253 acres. The blaze hit Bearded Lady Ranch in Brady, Nebraska, which raises registered quarter horses.
Before and after the Cottonwood Fire at Bearded Lady LLC (Bearded Lady LLC)
“I have a dozer at the house, and I tried to bulldoze a fire break on the north and west sides of the house,” Johnson said. “So that, essentially, once the fire hit that line, my hope was that it would save at least the house, the buildings around the house, the farmstead.”
“I actually dozed about 120 or 130 feet, but the wind was just too strong. It actually jumped that bare ground and burned up to the house,” he added.
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Although his home survived, Johnson said the ranch still faces major challenges.
“I know I need to rebuild my shop, so that I have somewhere to put the stuff that I need to make it through the days. But we just haven’t got any rain,” Johnson said. “We don’t have any fences. All my horses are in dry lots, which is not typically how I do things.”
Johnson also said he has noticed behavioral and reproductive changes in his horses since the fires and drought.
“I don’t know if it’s from the drought or the stress, but usually after they foal, they have a pretty routine cycle for when they come back into heat,” Johnson said. “You can start breeding those mares back again, and my mares just aren’t coming into heat.”
“So now you’re sitting here going, man, when are we gonna get the fencing done, and when’s it gonna rain? And even if everything else happens, if we don’t get mares to where they’re going to have us foals for next year, how are we going to make it through the next year?” he added.
Despite the hardship, Johnson said volunteers and donations from across the country have helped keep the ranch operating.
“The outreach from people, it almost gives you a different view of society,” Johnson said. “There were people coming from all over the United States.”
“There was hay from Georgia and Wisconsin, and I don’t even know all the states, but there were literally people driving 12 or 13 hours to bring hay out — not just to us, but to other neighbors and other people that were affected by the fires,” he added.
Bearded Lady LLC is trying to keep the Blues Kingfisher and Ruano Rojo Blue Valentine lines alive. (Kailey Schuyler)
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Van Newkirk shared a similar sentiment about the support pouring into ranch country.
“You know, that’s where that really chokes me up, all the outpouring of people nationwide to help this cattle community. It’s a tight-knit community, our hometown,” said Van Newkirk. “The day of the fire, our fire department looked like a commissary. I mean there was just so much food, Gatorade, palettes of water. There was a bushel basket full of chapstick for these firemen.”
But both ranchers said recovery ultimately depends on rainfall.
“It’s just miles upon miles of drought and it’s affecting everybody. I would feel pretty confident to say there’s not very many farmers or ranchers right now that don’t have some sort of stress or concerns about the lack of precipe,” said Johnson.
“This country’s dry, and we could use all the prayers that you could have us,” said Van Newkirk.
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen has requested that President Donald Trump issue a major disaster declaration related to the wildfires. The funding would assist with covering the cost of damage to public infrastructure.
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Pillen said in a statement, “”As Nebraska faced historic wildfires, the people of our state came together to jumpstart the recovery process. I’m submitting my request for a disaster declaration to the White House and FEMA. We appreciate President Trump’s attention to this matter and his long-standing support of our state when we have requested disaster recovery funding.”
There are currently several relief funds and GoFundMe pages to help those impacted stay afloat.
From 1962 to 2003, Nebraska football never once had a losing season. Even after the dynasty fell to pieces, the program didn’t. They posted three losing seasons in the next thirteen (2004 – 2016) but won nine-plus games in nine seasons and took home four division titles.
But since 2016, the Huskers have lost more than they’ve won, posting a record of 42-62 and eking out just two winning seasons. Notoriously, not one of those 42 wins came against a ranked team.
They haven’t managed a single season with eight wins, let alone nine, which was once their baseline. They’ve been to just two bowl games, winning one and getting run out of the building in the other. They couldn’t even win the famously forgiving Big Ten West.
It’s the worst ten years for Husker football since Eisenhower was in office.
How did the Huskers – once synonymous with consistent winning – fall this far? How did they become so helpless in a conference they once scoffed at?
Here are nine reasons the Huskers have gravitated to mediocrity.
1. Urban Meyer and TV money upgraded the Big Ten
Nebraska’s mediocrity has been a long-brewing storm that’s only swelled since Meyer strutted into Columbus in December 2011 and turned the Big Ten on its head. He condescended to his colleagues’ recruiting efforts, even going so far as to suggest they put on a ‘recruiting clinic’ of sorts to teach coaches how to more effectively fill their rosters with talent.
But while Meyer elevated the Buckeyes into an even bigger talent acquisition juggernaut, the TV money engineered by Jim Delany ramped up simultaneously. This meant the days of bargain-bin hires like Tim Beckman and Darrell Hazell were over. The Big Ten used its new coinage to hire a who’s who of the best coaches in the country – Bret Bielema, PJ Fleck, Curt Cignetti, Jim Harbaugh, James Franklin, Lincoln Riley, etc.
No longer could you chalk up Illinois and Indiana as gimmes on the schedule (not that Nebraska always had an easy time with either). This highly profitable egalitarian structure raised the floor of the league considerably. Nebraska usually dispatches other Power 4 schools – Colorado, Boston College, Cincinnati – but struggles against its domestic foes in the Big Ten in large part because they share most every advantage the Huskers have.
2. Dysfunction at the top
Athletic Director Shawn Eichorst was mercifully shown the door in 2017, amid the program’s worst season since 1961. Longtime Chancellor Harvey Pearlman, who presided over the program’s long, sad decline, retired the year before. They may be the biggest culprits for Nebraska’s sustained mediocrity in this article.
But things didn’t improve once they were gone. Bill Moos was hired as AD and while he was able to make a couple of splashy hires, he was considered a laissez-faire leader when the department sorely needed a firm hand.
Moos himself felt hamstrung by interference from the Regents, namely Jim Pillen, now Nebraska’s governor, who squashed Moos’ pursuit of Dana Altman for the basketball job. By the end of his tenure, Moos effectively had three bosses. “I didn’t know where to look for support.”
Moos described one of his bosses, Hank Bounds, as inexperienced in a system president role and bemoaned the interference he encountered. Bounds was ultimately replaced with Ted Carter, who later left for and resigned the same post at Ohio State after finding himself embroiled in controversy.
At one point, Nebraska power brokers even entertained the idea of leaving the Big Ten for the Big 12 – a move that would have traded the richest conference in college athletics for a league that pulls in about one-third the revenue. How would that move have sat with Husker fans years later when their former conference lost Texas and Oklahoma and Nebraska was rubbing elbows with schools like UCF and Houston? That such a conversation was even entertained says plenty.
Exhibit A of Nebraska’s dysfunction was Scott Frost’s contract extension. As Moos has since said, the deal was done without consulting him. Nebraska’s administration appeared so invested in keeping Frost happy – and so aware of his resilient popularity in the state – that it extended a coach in September 2019 whose tenure had gotten off to a rocky start, to say the least.
I won’t fault anyone for hiring Frost in the first place. Despite his poor tenure as coach, not getting him would have been devastating for the morale of the fanbase. Even if he had flamed out at Florida, Tennessee or UCF, there would have been those who contended he’d do well back home. But renewing his contract when his tenure had been mediocre at best ultimately cost the school precious dollars and prolonged the agony of his abysmal tenure.
Whether the powers governing the program have gotten their act together remains to be seen. In a recent interview with Adam Breneman, Rhule revealed that upon taking the position, he realized there were “systemic” issues within the program that were too big for any one coach to solve. That sounds like a diplomatic way of saying the Husker program is still figuring things out.
3. Riley took Nebraska backwards in strength and conditioning
Dysfunction wasn’t limited to 2018 on.
By the end of Riley’s tenure in 2017, coaches were meddling in the strength and conditioning department. It was a common refrain that became something of a joke on message boards and Twitter: “The players aren’t even doing back squats.”
But there was truth to it. The team wasn’t, in fact, doing the most fundamental strength exercise for football, electing for safer alternatives instead.
“You can’t run fast or jump high without being able to put force into the ground. And you can’t put force in the ground unless you have strong legs,” longtime strength coach at Nebraska, Randy Gobel (1981 – 2001) said. “The squat is still king.”
The fruits of Riley’s strength program showed up in 2017 when Nebraska fielded perhaps the most physically overmatched defense in its modern history. The defensive line faltered against Arkansas State, yielding 497 total yards before allowing 409 rushing yards to Minnesota. The offensive line was not much better, giving up crucial sacks in a loss to Northern Illinois. Those were supposed to be the easy games on their schedule that year. Instead, Nebraska finished 121st nationally with 107.5 rush yards per game.
When Gobel returned to Lincoln in early 2018, he mistook the team’s linemen for guys off the street. He knew right then Zach Duval, newly installed Strength Coach under Frost, had his work cut out for him.
The human body does not get rebuilt in a single offseason. Whether Duval and Frost ultimately made meaningful progress is debatable – and I won’t defend Frost’s tenure – but there’s no doubt they started in a deep hole.
4. Not taking special teams seriously
Fans still remember Riley’s Special Teams coach, Bruce Read, and his $450,000 salary. After his dismissal, few shed tears. But for all the criticism he took, Read’s units were at least ordinary. After he left, ordinary would have been an upgrade.
It seemed inconsequential when Frost neglected to hire a coach strictly dedicated to special teams in 2018. But the third phase of the game cost Nebraska often during his tenure, never more memorably than in 2021 when Nebraska lost nine games by single digits. Remember Michigan State?
The fans practically begged for Bill Busch to be made Special Teams Coordinator in 2022. Frost relented and the unit improved, though not to a level needed to compensate for other deficiencies.
Rhule came in with Ed Foley, who oversaw a pitiful enterprise. A 2024 season that saw Nebraska’s third phase lose them at least two games – Illinois and Iowa – if not more, was capped with an astonishing ten kicks/punts blocked.
It wasn’t until his third year in 2025 that Rhule elected to finally invest in a proven difference maker for that unit, and for once in the last ten years, Nebraska finished above average by SP+ metrics.
Whether he’s repeating old mistakes now with newly promoted Coordinator Brett Maher remains to be seen.
Nebraska has spent much of the last decade treating special teams like an afterthought instead of an area they can gain an advantage. That is how a program loses close games. It’s also how a program convinces itself that it’s unlucky when, in reality, it’s just ill-prepared.
5. Failing to develop
Development is an oft-overused term but there’s no denying that the process of taking athletes and turning them into football players through practice, weightlifting, repetition, and film study has been sorely lacking at Nebraska. Few do less with more than Nebraska while Big Ten neighbors operate as the antithesis.
Despite Trev Alberts’ goal of finding a head coach who could make Nebraska the premier developmental program again, his chosen candidate, Matt Rhule, has had a checkered start. Many of his recruiting class signees have yet to pan out. Not a single one of his high school offensive line signees is slated to start in 2026.
The lack of talent developed was once again on display during the NFL Draft, when only Emmett Johnson was taken (in the fifth round), tied for the second-worst output among Big Ten programs. Rival Iowa had seven.
Development is made even more difficult by the advent of NIL and the Transfer Portal, something that Rhule didn’t deal with when he coached Temple and Baylor. Players now routinely transfer out in search of quicker playing time and richer deals.
Speaking of which…
6. Recruiting and retention from 2017 on has been a disaster
Of the twenty signees in Nebraska’s 2017 recruiting class, just six (30%) finished their eligibility in Lincoln. Only Brenden Jaimes was drafted. You’d like to consider that the low water mark but it’s actually above average compared to what followed.
Five of 24 played out the string from Scott Frost’s transition class of 2018, counting JUCOs. That’s not even 21 percent of the class. A handful failed to qualify, a few were booted, and a few more were lost to injury. Two were drafted in Cam Jurgens and Cam Taylor-Britt.
Ten of 27 lasted from the 2019 class, a Frost-era high 37%, with Ty Robinson getting selected by the Eagles. Only 21% stuck around from 2020 – tying 2018 for the program low – with none being drafted and only Nash Hutmacher making an NFL roster. 25% kept the faith from the 2021 class, with Thomas Fidone going in the seventh round of the draft.
Thirty-three percent are slated to finish the 2022 class in Lincoln as things stand today. The 2023 class retains less than half, though it was a transition class. Things are trending better from there, with the 2024 class mostly intact. Rhule spent a lot of money to retain this offseason.
The problem wasn’t just that players left. Every program deals with that now. It was that too many looked better once they did.
Nebraska had two NFL receivers on its roster in 2019 and 2020, though one (Luke McCaffrey) played quarterback in Lincoln and the other (Wan’Dale Robinson) was asked to run into the backs of linemen. They both departed after 2020.
Princewill Umanmielen notched nine sacks last year playing for Ole Miss, far surpassing the 1.5 he racked up in two seasons at UNL. Defensive linemen Casey Rogers and Jordon Riley did their best work at Oregon with Riley later being drafted. Nate Boerkircher caught a game-winning TD pass against Notre Dame in his last year with Texas A&M and went in the second round of the draft.
|
Year |
Finished Eligibility at NU |
Drafted by NFL* |
|---|---|---|
|
2017 |
30% |
5% |
|
2018 |
21% |
8% |
|
2019 |
37% |
11% |
|
2020 |
21% |
4% |
|
2021 |
25% |
5% |
|
2022 |
33% |
5% |
|
2023 |
41% |
TBD |
*Includes those who transferred elsewhere
Retention matters because college football development is a compounding investment. Nebraska spent years signing players it either could not keep, could not develop, or could not effectively deploy. That led to a roster that constantly turned over while North division rivals like Iowa and Wisconsin kept turning three-star recruits into fifth-year stalwarts.
At the same time Nebraska was stargazing, they neglected to recruit the likes of Breece Hall, Logan Jones, Sam LaPorta, and James Lynch while missing out on hometown prospects like Xavier Watts, Ben Brahmer, Devon Jackson, Chase Loftin, and Darion Jones.
When Coach Osborne was the head man in Lincoln, he often defaulted to offering in-state kids because, along with the talent and desire they’d bring, they’d also stick around long enough for the Huskers to get their return on investment. In the last decade, Nebraska has spent too much time chasing stars while missing players who would have stayed and produced.
7. Psychological fragility
Psychological fragility is subjective and harder to measure than rushing yards or recruiting rankings, but Nebraska fans know what it looks like: one bad play becoming several, a turnover becoming a quarter-long spiral, a winnable game suddenly feeling like an inevitable loss.
It’s infected multiple staffs, namely Frost’s. But Rhule has carried on the legacy despite showing flashes of progress in 2025. Nebraska finally produced a fourth-quarter comeback against Maryland and it battled back against Northwestern and Michigan State. But the old bugaboos haven’t been vanquished. After the safety against Iowa in 2025, Rhule admitted what everyone else saw: “The air comes out of our tires and all of a sudden now you look up and it’s 40-16.”
“Sometimes plays don’t go our way and we kind of get down on ourselves,” Jimari Butler said after the blowout loss to Indiana in 2024.
“They’re going to start getting rattled and start getting frustrated,” IU linebacker Jailin Walker said, repeating Cignetti’s message from before kickoff.
The Huskers’ fragile psyche isn’t new, not to the fans, its current roster, or the coaches.
It predates the last decade. Pelini’s team regularly started strong, as they did in 2012 against Ohio State, 2013 against UCLA, and 2014 against Wisconsin. The Huskers sprang out to a 17-7 lead against OSU, 21-3 versus UCLA, and 17-7 in Madison. The final scores? 38-63, 21-41, and 24-59. “It was like they saw a ghost,” Pelini candidly commented after the UCLA debacle. It was no ghost – it was a team not mentally strong enough to face adversity.
Why is Nebraska so psychologically susceptible to collapse? Until someone answers that, Nebraska will keep confusing talent problems with temperament problems and close losses with curses.
8. Neglecting the run game
I sat in the second row of Nebraska’s loss at Illinois in 2015, watching Tommy Armstrong struggle to complete barely a third of his throws in cold, blustery conditions while Devine Ozigbo ran for ten yards a carry when given the ball. Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. Within earshot of the Husker bench, I stood and shouted, “Riley, run the ball!” Nebraska lost to a woeful team that day in what is still one of their worst losses of the last fifteen years.
But that game is indicative of a larger problem the program has dealt with. Nebraska is geographically, demographically, and culturally suited to run the football. The weather, the available talent, and the fans themselves are all built for a run game. November in the Big Ten is not an environment for seven-step drops and timing routes. Nebraska’s best local and regional recruiting bets are still more likely to be linemen, tight ends, fullbacks, linebackers, and running backs than five-star receivers.
Still, we see Nebraska try to build around pocket passers, with often disastrous results (see 2017). Nebraska cannot build its future around a thrower and his receivers. Build the line. Build the backs. Build the run game. I’ll go to my grave screaming it.
9. Making Puzzling Assistant Hires
Nebraska has had the money to build elite staffs. Too often, it’s built mismatched ones instead.
Start with Rhule’s original staff in 2023. The only coach retained was Donovan Raiola, whose 2022 offensive line had been disastrous but whose family connection to a certain prized recruit was impossible to ignore. Fans criticized the hiring of 23-year-old wide receivers coach, Garret McGuire. Rhule defended the move on Bussin’ With the Boys, but within two seasons McGuire was gone. Ed Foley, as previously discussed, did not stabilize special teams. More perplexing still, Rhule did not even use his entire assistant salary pool.
The Huskers haven’t always skimped on hiring. They fought off Arkansas to land Bob Diaco, a former Broyles Award winner. Former offensive coordinator Troy Walters was once a finalist for the same award. Zach Duval was voted Strength Coach of the Year in 2017.
But by and large Nebraska has failed to make good on its considerable war chest.
Frost arrived in 2018 without a single assistant who had coached in the Big Ten, then was quickly humbled by the league’s size, weather, line play, and week-to-week physicality. He pulled Matt Lubick out of the financial industry to replace Walters in 2020. Lubick failed to move the needle in two years running the offense.
What’s more, Husker assistants have often operated under differing philosophies, signaling a lack of cohesion among the collective coaching brain trust.
Shawn Eichorst pushed then-coach Mike Riley to fire his longtime friend and defensive coordinator Mark Banker after his Iowa “bloodbath” comments in 2016. Eichorst then hailed Bob Diaco as the best coach on campus. Diaco lasted one season and presided over one of the worst defenses in modern Nebraska history.
Trev Alberts later pushed Frost to hire outside his comfort zone, most notably with Mark Whipple in 2022. The two never saw eye to eye on offensive philosophy. “I think our offensive staff has to learn you’ve got to be a little more creative in this league,” Frost said pointedly after the Northwestern loss. That was not just a postgame complaint. It was Frost publicly distancing himself from the offense he had been pressured to change against his wishes.
Rhule also appeared committed to maintaining the 3-3-5 structure under John Butler, despite Butler having little background in the system before arriving in Lincoln. The result was a porous run defense. It remains to be seen whether Rhule’s preferred offensive vision can fully coexist with Dana Holgorsen’s Air Raid roots.
Hiring renowned offensive line coach Geep Wade is a step in the right direction, as is adding up-and-coming coordinator Rob Aurich. But those hires only matter if they are part of a coherent plan. Nebraska has spent too much of the last decade collecting résumés instead of building staffs.
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