T.J. Birkel
The Big Ten released schedules for the 2025 season last week. While we already knew Nebraska’s opponents for the coming season, we now know all the dates, bye weeks, and locations for the upcoming campaign. As the Huskers prepare for the Pinstripe Bowl, Husker Nation can already start marking their calendars and making plans for next fall. Here are three takes on the 2025 Nebraska football schedule.
This is Manageable. Let’s be clear: until they prove otherwise, the Nebraska football team cannot take anyone for granted or assume any game is an automatic victory. They’ve shown that all too often over the last decade. But, if you’re a program that’s looking to take a leap in Year 3 of a head coach’s tenure, and hoping to get back to relevance on the national college football stage, you could do a lot worse than this schedule. Of the four teams representing the Big Ten in the inaugural 12 team College Football Playoff starting this weekend (Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State, and Indiana), the Huskers only play Penn State. They get Michigan, Michigan State, USC, and Iowa at home. They also once again have two bye weeks, which appears to be the new norm for Big Ten teams. In the new world of super conferences in college football, this is about as good as you can ask for. This will be a pivotal year for Matt Rhule to show major progress, and he needs to capitalize. If you dare to peak ahead to the 2026 schedule, you’ll see it gets much more difficult.
Another Favorable Start. One thing that worked to Nebraska’s advantage during the 2024 season was that the front half of the schedule involved the more manageable games. The Huskers got out to a 5-1 start, and were one overtime loss away from being 6-0 during that stretch. The same will be true in 2025. The Big Red opens with Cincinnati, which probably won’t be a pushover, but the Bearcats are coming off of back-to-back losing seasons and are still adjusting to life in the Big 12. The next two games, both at home, are against Akron and Houston Christian.
Nebraska then opens conference play like this: Michigan at home, Michigan State at home, at Maryland, at Minnesota, home against Northwestern. A lot can change for any team over the course of one offseason, but of those teams, only Michigan and Minnesota had winning records in 2024, and both were 7-5. Again, the Huskers can’t take anyone for granted, but you’d sure like to see them having already reached bowl eligibility (at the very least) by the time the Northwestern game concludes.
The final four games to end the season go like this: USC at home, at UCLA, at Penn State, Iowa at home. The Huskers played three of these teams in 2024 and lost to each of them. The Huskers also had a chance to win every single one of those games, so who knows what happens in 2025? I look forward to the day when we are excited about every game because the boys in red are dominant again. And hey, maybe that will happen in 2025! But for now, these are things Nebraska fans need to consider.
Kansas City Here We Come. Speaking of that showdown against Cincinnati…it was originally scheduled to be a neutral site game, taking place in Indianapolis. It’s still going to be a neutral site game, but was just moved to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. You have to imagine tens of thousands of Husker fans will make the trek for that one. Considering this technically functions as a home game for Cincinnati, it couldn’t work out much better for the Big Red faithful. It’s an easy drive from Lincoln or Omaha. With a Thursday night kickoff, fans can enjoy the game and be home in time for Labor Day weekend. Or, they can stay and embrace the holiday weekend with some Kansas City barbecue and Royals baseball (while hopefully basking in the glow of a Husker victory). Yes, the Royals are in town that weekend, with a home series against the Detroit Tigers. Those were both playoff teams in 2024, so it’s one more compelling element to the weekend.
As always, GBR for LIFE.