HUSKER GAMEDAY: Nebraska hosts Northern Iowa in final non-conference game

LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) – A week removed from the biggest win under head coach Matt Rhule, the Huskers are looking to carry their momentum back into Memorial Stadium on Saturday and remain unbeaten entering Big Ten Conference play next week.

No. 23 Nebraska (2-0) hosts Northern Iowa (2-0) out of the FCS on Saturday in its final non-conference game of the 2024 campaign before taking on Illinois next Friday.

GAME INFO

• WHEN: 6:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 14
• WHERE: Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb.
• WATCH: Big Ten Network
• LISTEN: Huskers Radio Network
• VEGAS ODDS: Northern Iowa +32.5, O/U 47.5

The Huskers are riding high after a 28-10 clobbering of Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes in prime time last Saturday night in a game that drew 6.3 million viewers across the country — the most of any Week 2 game aside from the top-10 clash between Texas and Michigan.

The result of the Colorado game quickly pushed Nebraska to the forefront of the college football conversation, signaling a return to national prominence. An appearance at No. 23 in the AP Top 25 confirmed those signals. With eyeballs come expectations, though, and now the pressure is turned up for the Huskers to produce a high-quality follow-up act this weekend.

“You come here to have high expectations,” Matt Rhule said in a press conference Monday. “You come here to play in big games. You come here to play in front of that crowd. Those are the reasons you come here, so we expect to be ranked. Whatever it is, 23rd, 24th, that’s not where we want to end up. So[we’ll try] to go 1-0 every week and see what happens.”

Standing in their way will be an unbeaten UNI team that boasts wins over fellow FCS opponents Valpraiso and St. Thomas Minnesota.

On paper, the Panthers don’t hold a candle to the prolific Colorado offense that Nebraska shutdown last week, but they do have one of the best running backs in all of college football: Tye Edwards. Edwards is a 6-foot-4, 230-pound wrecking ball who has made his presence known in the first two games of his senior season, racking up 315 yards on just 30 carries.

“I have a lot of respect for what they’ve done over there [at Northern Iowa],” said Rhule. “I know playing Northern Iowa, they know how to win. They expect to win. They’ve come to places like this before… It’s a scary game, in that regard, because Northern Iowa knows how to win.”

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