Game-by-game predictions for entire 2024 Nebraska Cornhuskers football schedule

Year 2 under Matt Rhule in Lincoln brings plenty of promise for the Nebraska football program. And it’s promise that On3’s J.D. PicKell sees panning out into plenty of wins.

Taking a look at the Cornhuskers schedule this week, PicKell went through and offered his game-by-game predictions for Nebraska. All told, he’s fairly confident in Rhule’s outfit to up their game, projecting them to finish the 2024 season 8-4 and with the first bowl berth since the 2016 season.

“You can go under, hit 7, and golly man, first time making a bowl since 2016. If you’re Nebraska, you take that,” PicKell said. “However, though, you’re expecting a little bit more than that. You’d like to hit the over there. And I think there’s good reason for that. There’s a lot less ‘fingers crossed’ kind of vibe in Lincoln these days.”

PicKell sees the Nebraska schedule playing out as follows:

• Win vs. UTEP
• Win vs. Colorado
• Win vs. Northern Iowa
• Win vs. Illinois
• Win at Purdue
• Loss vs. Rutgers
• Win at Indiana
• Loss at Ohio State
• Win vs. UCLA
• Loss at USC
• Loss vs. Wisconsin
• Win at Iowa

The loss to Rutgers that PicKell picked out, he explained, is not so much a strict prediction that Rutgers will pull off that win, but more a reflection that in one of the Cornhuskers first five or six games, PicKell expects freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola to have a few hiccups.

Confidence might be high in the young quarterback, but PicKell is assuming there will be growing pains.

But in general he thinks the Cornhuskers will be starting hot, including winning the Week 2 rivalry against Colorado. Not that it’s much of a negotiable for Nebraska to have the season it wants.

“If you are going to be who you say you are, in 2024, going to be that team that makes a bowl game, going to be that team that causes some trouble for other teams across the Big Ten, you have to win this football game,” PicKell said. “Last year, Nebraska turned it over four times in this one. Four times. Can’t do it. Cannot do it. I think they win that football game, I think they’ll be more disciplined. I think they have more firepower on offense. I think they’re going to be a much improved operation in 2024 and I think they’ll be able to give Colorado, with it being at Nebraska.”

In the back half of the schedule, PicKell has Nebraska dropping a trio of games. He readily acknowledged the USC game is a bit of a tossup at present, and gave USC the nod as the home team. And the game against Wisconsin will perhaps come down to which second-year head coach has made the most strides, Rhule or Luke Fickell in Madison. Right now, PicKell is bullish on the Badgers to hold serve.

There is no illusion, though, that Ohio State should come away with a win over Nebraska in 2024. But that doesn’t mean that game is for naught, PicKell pointed out.

“Nebraska is building to ultimately compete with Ohio State in the future and beat Ohio State in the future,” PicKell said. “That’s the plan, I promise you. Matt Rhule is not here to shake hands and go 9-3 and call it a good season because they lost to Ohio State by a couple of points. That’s not how he gets down. However, even though I think they lose to Ohio State, the thing I’d watch on this game is ‘What’s the gap?’ What’s the gap here, like how far off are we if we’re Nebraska? How competitive are we? I’m not saying you take a moral victory, I’m just saying watch the line of scrimmage, watch how Raiola plays in what I expect to be a big-time atmosphere on the road, tough place to play.”

And if Nebraska does reel off an eight-win campaign and head to a bowl game, PicKell thinks it could be a big relief to the Cornhusker faithful all around who have been waiting for years now for the team to breakthrough again.

“Here’s the overwhelming sentiment when you close the book on what 2024 will be: We were never crazy. Maybe crazy in a good way for how much we love the Cornhuskers, but we were never crazy in telling ourselves the story of how close we were,” PicKell said. “Because you lost so many games by one score year after year after year, you’re like ‘OK, are we actually that close? The scoreboard says we are but if we’re going to keep losing close games, is that just who we are?’ This kind of a season, where you win eight football games, ‘Phew, OK, we were never crazy. It just took the right quarterback. It just took the right head coach. It just took the right way of doing things.'”