Joel Klatt explains picking Nebraska as a bounce back team in 2024

Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt is high on Nebraska to be a bounce back team in 2024. It seems that’s the way the Huskers are trending in Year 2 under Matt Rhule.

With freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola in the fold, some transfers and a year of experience, it looks like Nebraska could be quite competitive. It’s just all about taking care of the football.

That’s why Klatt doesn’t want the 5-7 2023 record for Nebraska to fool you folks out there.

“Nebraska has a team that I think could be really good,” Klatt said on his show. “They were 5-7 a year ago. And you look at those seven losses, and I’m telling you like, it was all quarterback turnovers, almost all of it. They were very competitive, in fact, way more competitive in Matt Rhule’s first season than their 5-7 record indicates. (If) they get a little bit better quarterback play and namely just protecting the football and they’re going to be much better. He’s a builder.” 

Based on Rhule’s past stops at Temple and Baylor, Klatt believes Nebraska is the next project that’ll work. The head coach essentially rebuilt those two college programs from scratch.

“Speaking of Matt Rhule, he did it at Temple, he did it at Baylor, I believe it’s going to work in Nebraska as well,” Klatt said. “The defense was really good last year and they bring a lot of players back. Dylan Raiola at quarterback. My biggest question is going to be who’s catching the ball because I don’t think that they’re strong necessarily at the skill positions. 

“But that’s going to be something that will play out. They could be, if they were to beat my fifth team on this (bounce back list, which is Colorado), they could be undefeated, 7-0 heading to Columbus in October for a game against Ohio State.”

As far as where Rhule believes Nebraska is in the building process, it’s a different situation than year’s past.

“Year 1 here was like year two at Temple or Baylor.—it’s funny; I always felt like we did our best job coaching at Temple and Baylor in year one,” Rhule said. “Sometimes, that’s when you’re under the most pressure and duress. People are questioning what you’re doing. But I look back, I say, ‘Man, we saved the program at Baylor in year one.

“Here, the program didn’t need to be saved. Scott Frost had done a good job; he brought in talent, there were good players here, good people. What we have to do is we have to take our program and that’s really the challenge right now; we’ve got to stop being the team that loses the close games.”