BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WOWT) – A bye week gives way to another road trip for the Huskers as they march into the back half of the regular season.

Nebraska (5-1, 2-1) takes on No. 16 Indiana (6-0, 3-0) in a pivotal Big Ten matchup between two teams that — perhaps to the surprise of their respective fanbases — are still very much alive in the race for a bid in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff with just six games left.

GAME INFO

• WHERE: Indiana Memorial Stadium, Bloomington, Ind.
• WHEN: 11 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 19
• WATCH: FOX
• LISTEN: Huskers Radio Network
• VEGAS ODDS: Nebraska +6.5, O/U 49.5

The Huskers entered their bye week off a 14-7 win over then-unbeaten Rutgers two Saturdays ago. The defense shined in a game that looked like a classic Big Ten slugfest. as Rutgers only mustered 78 yards on the ground against a Blackshirts defensive front that has yet to allow a rushing touchdown all season.

“They don’t get in,” said Nebraska’s veteran defensive lineman Ty Robinson in a press conference earlier this week. “Plain and simple. That’s just our mindset and mentality. That’s what we tell each other when we’re in the huddle. ‘They don’t get in.’ We go out there and work together.”

For the first time in 2024, the Huskers will be an underdog when they take the field in Bloomington on Saturday. In fact, Nebraska was favored a touchdown or more in each of its first six games. While it may be new for this year’s squad, it’s not like the Huskers are total strangers to being underdogs over the past decade, and they’re leaning into that status this week.

“I’d much prefer [being an underdog],” Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule said in his press conference Thursday. “I love turning on [ESPN] Gameday and seeing them all pick the other team. That’s good for us.”

Rhule’s squad has business to tend to. A win would be Nebraska’s sixth of the season, meaning the Huskers would finally cross the threshold of bowl eligibility to end their 8-year bowl drought. That possibility gets Big Red nation fired up, but Rhule and company aren’t interested — at least for now.

“I’m only focused on the game,” Rhule said. “I answered that question last year and never got there. I’m just gonna focus on the football and make sure our guys are locked in. They’re all in on everything we’re asking them to do and it’s been a great week of practice. To me, it’s just about us playing well against a great team.”

That great team standing in their way Saturday are the darlings of the 2024 college football season. Well, at least in Power 4 college football. After all, Army and Navy are both ranked in the Top 25 for the first time since the 1960s.

But speaking of the ‘60s, Indiana is 6-0 for the first time since 1967, and head coach Curt Cignetti has managed to put the Hoosier State in a state of frenzy about a sport that doesn’t involve a round ball and a hardwood court.

Cignetti was the frontman for James Madison University during the program’s jump from FCS to FBS in 2022. Cignetti led the Dukes to become the first team to ever be ranked inside the AP Top 25 in their first year as an FBS program. Then last year, JMU went 11-1, won the Sun Belt East and appeared in a bowl game under Cignetti. And that was all she wrote.

Cignetti signed on to be the Indiana head coach in November 2023 and has yet to lose a game. During the offseason, he enlisted the help of one of college football’s best transfer quarterbacks, luring Kurtis Rourke to Bloomington from the University of Ohio. That move has paid off, as the fifth-year senior has thrown for over 1,700 yards and 14 touchdowns to just two interceptions while boasting the third-highest QBR in the entire country through six games.

“[Rourke] is an excellent player in a great system,” Rhule said. “I think the biggest thing, too, is they have weapons around him. They have a great O-line. They have an excellent tight end. They have two great backs. About five receivers who can make plays. They just have a great system. They know who they are and they know what they do.”

One of those receivers is Elijah Sarratt, who quickly developed a chemistry with Rourke. Sarratt came over from JMU with Cignetti after catching eight touchdowns and racking up nearly 1,200 receiving yards in 2023. So far this year, he’s just as productive, and he will pose a challenge to a Nebraska defensive that ranks in the top 30 in passing defense.

Suffice to say the obstacles are aplenty for the Huskers as they enter what promises to be a hostile environment in front of a crowd that hasn’t experienced success on the gridiron in several decades.

But the focus remains all the same for the Huskers: Block out the noise, throw out the records and go win a football game.

“The team that plays the best wins,” Rhule said. “Not the team with the best roster, not the team with the best record, not the team that won last week, not the team that has better music in the locker room. The team that plays better wins. So we’ll just try to be in the moment, [play] one snap at a time, and don’t worry about the scoreboard.”

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