One of the top running backs in Nebraska football history believes the current lead-back is ready for the next level.

Speaking on Hurrdat Sports Live on Friday, former Huskers Ameer Abdullah and Kenny Bell joined hosts Damon Benning and Ravi Lulla. With three-time All-Big Ten running back and 11-year NFL veteran Abdullah on the show, the conversation quickly turned to Emmett Johnson.

“The similarities I see in Emmett is just the dynamic ability to do so many things,” Abdullah said after former teammate Kenny Bell said they had someone able to do it all from the running back position during their time in Lincoln. “You see the screen that he took for 56 (yards) last week. It’s just scratching the surface of what his potential can be as a weapon.”

Abdullah believes Johnson is displaying abilities that will earn him a spot at the next level.

“When you look at the NFL landscape, I know scouts are going to be drooling about a guy like that who can make guys miss in space,” Abdullah said. “I think what is most similar in our games is his anticipatory nature. He sees it before it happens.”

Abdullah said being able to anticipate and manipulate the defenders is a sixth sense that you have to have for success.

“You can’t really coach that for a back who can do it really consistently,” Abdullah said. “I feel like that’s what I had at Nebraska, which allowed me to have my senior year, tons of long runs. You saw that jump for Emmett this year, where it went from just marginal gains to boom, big runs, because that anticipation is right on mark.”

Johnson is expected to be in the running for the Doak Walker Award, and the university has put together a Heisman Trophy campaign for him. He’s just the second Husker to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season since Abdullah, and in the UCLA game became the first Husker running back to notch rushing and receiving yards of more than 100 yards each.

“I’m proud, man, because it’s been a while since I could look at that backfield and be like, ‘That’s a guy.’ And Emmett is a guy. It took a while for a lot of people to really believe that, but he just shows up every single week,” Abdullah said.

Abdullah and Johnson have built a relationship over the past couple of years, with the current Husker seeking advice.

“He sought me out,” Abdullah said. “I didn’t go to him. He messaged me online and was like, ‘Dude, give me any game you can. Whenever you come back, let’s rap.’

“He came and volunteered at my camp two years in a row without asking for anything. He just wanted to be around me and soak up the energy and soak up the knowledge in any way that he could.”

As for that knowledge Johnson is soaking up, Abdullah is using his own experience to offer advice at a critical junction for the younger back.

“The advice I got was, ‘Go back and finish your degree,’” Abdullah said. “But if I could go back, I probably would have left early and the reason why is because I’m in my 11th year in the NFL and I play running back. It’s just a very gruesome position.”

Abdullah noted that he’s the only running back remaining from his draft class in 2015, and he’s the longest-tenured running back in the league.

“I just know from a wear-and-tear standpoint what could have been… if I had taken that one year off of my body in college,” Abdullah said. “I understand now the landscape of the NIL changes things.

“But when it comes to EJ, I definitely think that, looking at this draft class of running backs, looking at the year and the momentum that he has, I definitely think he needs to take advantage of this opportunity.”

Abdullah noted that a number of teams in the league have aging running backs and need a player who can do it all from the backfield, like Johnson has shown this season. The 2026 NFL draft is scheduled for April 23-25 in Pittsburgh.

Nebraska’s regular season continues Saturday with a night game at Penn State, before closing with a Black Friday affair at home against Iowa.

Have a question or comment for Kaleb? Send an email to kalebhenry.huskermax@gmail.com.

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The college football offseason has never looked more different, and for a Nebraska program that Matt Rhule says has “got everything [they] need to get the best players in the country,” the new transfer portal structure could make this one of the most consequential offseasons in recent memory.

Following an early-October decision by the NCAA’s Division I Administrative Committee, the sport is officially shifting to a single transfer window. Beginning with the 2026 cycle, players will have from Jan. 2 through Jan. 16 to formally enter the portal.

The change not only eliminates the former spring transfer period but also removes December movement entirely, consolidating all transfer activity into a 15-day stretch that ends just three days before the National Championship at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on Jan. 19.

By condensing the portal to a single window in January, the NCAA has finally given Nebraska a clear picture of what its roster will look like, not just for the bowl game, but through summer training, fall camp, and into the 2026 season as a whole.

Instead of navigating a revolving door of mid-December departures and doing it again in the spring, the Huskers can head into the offseason with something they haven’t had in years: stability. For once, the roster they spent all season developing is the one they can actually keep.

While finishing the 2025 season the right way remains the priority, the new structure also gives the coaching staff and athletic department a cleaner runway. January becomes the month for portal decisions, NIL planning, and long-term roster construction, without the split focus of game-planning in between.

With that in mind, here’s how the new window will likely reshape Nebraska’s recruiting strategy heading into 2026.

With Early National Signing Day for high school recruits wrapping up on Dec. 5, Rhule and his staff will no longer have to balance prep and transfer recruiting in the same month. Nebraska’s 2026 class, which currently features 11 commits, will already have been signed for nearly a month before the transfer portal even opens.

With those developmental players locked in, the Huskers will have their clearest picture yet of what they need to add for 2026. Instead of projecting needs while juggling high school evaluations, Nebraska can identify gaps with precision and move aggressively to fill them.

If the current total of 11 high school commits holds steady, expect the Huskers to be even more assertive in the portal as they look to build on the momentum Rhule has created entering year four at the helm.

Rhule reinforced that mindset during the bye week ahead of the Penn State game, saying, “I want to put the best players in the country in this room, and [we’re] not having to worry about, ‘Hey, can we afford it?’”

After Nebraska’s 28–21 win over Northwestern on Oct. 25, the Huskers officially became bowl-eligible for the second straight season. With two games left in the regular season, the focus now shifts to which bowl Nebraska will play in, and just as importantly, who will be available when they get there.

That’s where the NCAA’s new transfer window becomes especially significant. Under the old system, Rhule and his staff had to prepare for a bowl game while simultaneously bracing for roster departures. Last season was the clearest example when Nebraska lost 33 players to the portal cycle between December and January, leaving the staff guessing about who would still be on the field.

That will no longer be the case.

With the portal now opening after bowl season, Nebraska will finally enter postseason play with its full roster intact. Every scholarship player, everyone on the two-deep, every starter, all of them will be available. No opt-outs due to portal entry, no disruption during bowl prep, only 15 additional practices and a chance to win another game.

The only teams that will still deal with transfer chaos during that stretch will be College Football Playoff teams, who must navigate portal entries during their postseason run. For programs like Nebraska, competing in the next tier of bowl matchups, this change creates a level of stability they haven’t experienced in years.

And for a team still building under Rhule, that continuity matters. Bowl prep becomes more valuable. Reps aren’t lost to attrition. Young players get meaningful development time with the full roster. And the staff can evaluate the team before the portal opens, giving them a clearer roadmap for January.

This is the first time in the portal era Nebraska can say it will truly take its team, and its whole team at that, into a bowl game.

With that in mind, Jan. 2 is still 48 days away, but that deadline will arrive faster than it feels. After guiding Nebraska to its most successful regular season since 2016, with a chance to improve that mark over the next two weeks, Rhule and his staff are expected to take big swings in the portal to keep the program trending upwards next fall.

Sophomore quarterback Dylan Raiola will enter his junior year in 2026, and Nebraska will almost certainly look to surround him with even more top-end talent. If the Huskers want to maximize the potential of their program-changing quarterback, the portal will be a major tool in doing so. For fans, it’s year four of the Rhule era, but for Rhule himself, it’s time to win now. After signing an extension through 2032, the expectations have only grown, and this next portal cycle is a chance to prove the university was right to double down on his leadership.

The first step, though, is finishing the 2025 season the right way. Despite the adversity of recent weeks, Nebraska has a chance to stack wins, secure a quality bowl game, and show recruits and future transfers that the progress they keep hearing about is real. Tangible improvement matters, and momentum heading into January could make all the difference when the window opens.

Until then, it’s business as usual — but when Jan. 2 rolls around, it’s all hands on deck.

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The streak is over. 

UCLA ended Nebraska’s run of 48 set victories in a row that dated back to Sept. 16 in a five-set win over Creighton. 

However, the Huskers’ perfect season continues as they earned a 25-17, 25-23, 19-25, 25-15 win Friday night in front of a school record crowd of 10,498 at Pauley Pavilion. 

“It was good for us to get tested, and then I thought we delivered,” NU coach Dani Busboom Kelly said on her postgame radio interview. ”In some big moments, certain players that knew they were going to get the ball, had to get the kill. It was great to see them do that under pressure.”

NU (25-0, 15-0) also saw its streak of 15 matches in a row of hitting at least .300 end as the Huskers finished with a .299 hitting percentage. The last time the Huskers failed to hit .300 in a match was also the last time they failed to sweep their opponent. Bergen Reilly led the offense with 34 assists. 

Nebraska led 6-1 in the third set before the Bruins (14-11, 8-7) rallied and began stringing points. UCLA eventually took a 15-13 lead in the set. Nebraska closed to 18-16, but the Bruins ran off five points in a row to take control before Maggie Li added kills for their final two points. The Huskers hit .190 in the set and tried to find a spark late by bringing in Campbell Flynn. 

Andi Jackson said it was good for the Huskers to face a little bit of adversity and be pushed by an opponent. Even though they’ve been tested before, dropping the set will benefit them going forward. 

“We all agree that it was really good for our team. The pressure is off,” Jackson said on the BTN broadcast. “You could definitely tell in the first, second and third sets, we were playing like there was so much pressure on us and just a weight on us. So now that’s gone, and we can play free once again.”

NU finished with 12 hitting errors, which is not too out of line with its recent performance, but it took them 137 swings to accumulate 53 kills. 

For the first time all season, an opponent outdug the Huskers as UCLA finished with 59 digs, led by 17 from libero Lola Schumacher. Setter Kate Duffey and outside hitter Maggie Li added 10 each. NU recorded 48 digs, paced by 14 from Laney Choboy. 

Li led the Bruins with 20 kills while Cheridyn Leverette added 17 kills. Marianna Singletary finished with 12 kills and seven blocks. 

“We’re getting outworked defensively, which is rare for us,” Busboom Kelly said. “UCLA played exceptional, especially from the defensive end, and their outsides were great. We learned that we’re not invincible.”

The Huskers’ offense struggled to start, recording just two kills in the first 16 rallies. However, UCLA had bigger problems, committing four hitting errors, missing two serves, and having two bad sets. NU extended its lead to 19-9 on five straight points from Rebekah Allick — four kills and a block with Virginia Adriano — before UCLA regrouped behind a 5-0 run. Harper Murray added 3 kills in the red zone to help wrap the set up. 

The second set also featured some drama as UCLA used a 5-0 run to go up 10-5 in the second set as they recorded 8 kills on their first 19 kills. The Huskers only had one kill on 13 swings in the same time frame. 

Nebraska battled back and took a 13-12 lead after winning eight of the next 10 rallies. The Bruins went back in front and led 18-16, but the Huskers again locked in and won seven of the following eight points. During one of those two points, an attack from Li was called long. However, replays showed that NUs block touched it, which, if called, could have cut the Huskers’ lead to 21-20, but the Bruins opted not to challenge the play. 

UCLA fought off two set points, but Murray delivered the final point with a big swing to push NU’s set streak to 48. 

In the fourth set, NU raced out to an 11-5 lead as Jackson recorded three kills during a six-point stretch. She put up seven kills in the set as she finished the night with 15 kills on 24 errorless swings. 

“Our passers pass so good, and Bergen and Campbell set the ball so well; they put it in great positions,” Jackson said. “I go up and obviously have space and vision when I’m hitting, but it’s really like when you get such a great set off of a great pass, it makes it super easy.”

The Bruins got as close as 14-11 in the fourth set after a missed serve, and NU won eight of the next nine rallies to put the match on ice. 

“We ended on a super high note, and kind of the way we’ve been playing all year,” Busboom Kelly said. 

Murray finished with 14 kills while Allick contributed 13 kills on a .440 hitting percentage and seven blocks. Taylor Landfair only recorded five blocks, but was in on six blocks. Adriano finished with just two kills as Allie Sczech played the second and third sets and also recorded two kills. 

The Huskers stay in Los Angeles and face another tough test against No. 17 USC on Sunday at noon CST. 

“USC is very, very good,” Busboom Kelly said. “They are definitely a team that’s playing great right now and is young, but they serve really tough. It’s going to be quite the battle on Sunday.”

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