LINCOLN, Neb. — The final hours of 2024 are here. We can wait no longer. It’s time to review my predictions made 12 months ago and gaze ahead at 2025.
What will the next year bring for Nebraska? The only certainty is more “perceived chaos,” as football coach Matt Rhule coined the college football landscape. Every year tops the last, it seems, in this era of professionalization and free agency.
Revenue sharing, on track to kick in next summer, is sure to alter the environment dramatically.
In 2024, I nailed predictions about specifics on the Huskers’ transfer portal additions and an early-in-the-year shift among the offensive coaching staff. I saw an NCAA Tournament basketball appearance in the cards, Dylan Raiola’s ascension to QB1 and the end of the Huskers’ bowl drought.
I missed on the impact of Jordy Bahl, the star softball pitcher who suffered a knee injury in the Huskers’ season opener. I missed in predicting Tony White would land a head-coaching job; instead, he moved to Florida State to coordinate the defense.
And I failed, too, like everyone else a year ago, in sniffing out the bombshell March departure of Trev Alberts as athletic director.
Predictions for 2025 won’t include details on the next football season. Let’s first see the roster take shape.
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1. Nebraska will add multiple offensive linemen with starting experience and a running back from the portal. The top target, Washington State transfer Fa’alili Fa’amoe remains uncommitted after a visit before Christmas to Michigan. Nebraska had him on campus on Dec. 18. Fa’amoe, 6-foot-5 and 315 pounds, has three years of starting experience at right tackle and would fill a massive need.
The Huskers are desperate for O-linemen. They played only the five starters in their Pinstripe Bowl victory. Right tackle Bryce Benhart and center Ben Scott are done. Nebraska’s most promising young linemen are likely not ready for the Big Ten trenches.
As Rhule said, desperate teams set the market. Nebraska has tried and failed over the past two cycles to lure top linemen. Just three offensive linemen from Nebraska were drafted to the NFL in the past seven years, a placement rate that hurts the Huskers.
It must keep raising the size of NIL offers until one hits.
Nebraska has filled needs nicely elsewhere, except running back. With Dante Dowdell and Gabe Ervin out along with the graduating Rahmir Johnson, the Huskers need to find a back to complement Emmett Johnson.
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2. There’s another coaching shakeup to come. This is standard stuff today. Rhule shook up the offensive staff after last season. The defense got a major overhaul in December. Already, Nebraska has added five assistant coaches since the end of the regular season, promoted John Butler to defensive coordinator and locked up Dana Holgorsen as OC after his three-game test drive to end the regular season.
Parts of the offensive staff under Holgorsen are not untouchable. And the situation on special teams is untenable. Nebraska ranked this season no better than 92nd nationally in kickoff or punt returns and kickoff or punt coverage. Foes blocked 10 kicks against the Huskers in 2024. The snapping was inconsistent, to put it kindly, and the kicker position remained unstable until midseason.
Nebraska men’s basketball has gone 1-1 in Big Ten games and hosts UCLA on Saturday. (Dylan Widger / Imagn Images)
3. The Nebraska men’s basketball team will win a game in the NCAA Tournament. At this point, I just have faith in Fred Hoiberg to get over the hurdle never cleared by the Huskers. He rebuilt this team around Juwan Gary and Brice Williams after Nebraska lost in the first round of the tourney against Texas A&M last season.
Nebraska is 11-2 overall and sat 46th in NET rankings Monday. It beat Southern to finish nonconference play at 10-1, equaling its fifth-most successful mark since World War II. No. 15 UCLA visits Lincoln on Saturday in a Fox-televised 1 p.m. start. That’s a big one.
The Huskers have won 19 consecutive games at home. One more win will tie the school record. Bet on Fred.
4. Nebraska football will offer fewer in-state players in the Class of 2026 than in any year since 2020. The class in Nebraska six years ago featured Omaha Burke’s Xavier Watts, who is finishing an All-America career at Notre Dame in the CFP. The Huskers hit on Isaac Gifford as a walk-on in 2020, but it was an otherwise dry year.
This 2026 group is not necessarily down in comparison to recent classes. Nebraska simply does not have the spots as a result of a roster reduction to meet the 105-player limit. Sadly for the state of Nebraska, the 105 will enact deep cuts into the number of homegrown players who play for the Huskers.
Nebraska is all in on pursuing Millard South tight end Isaac Jensen. It’s extended offers to three others — wide receivers Champ Davis of Omaha North, DaShawn Prince of Omaha Central and Elkhorn North linebacker Jase Reynolds. Nebraska has not made a strong push for two of the top prospects in the state, Millard South wide receiver Amarion Jackson and Bellevue West athlete Kaprice Keith. Keith is committed to Iowa State.
5. More than one former four-star signee from Nebraska won’t find room at a Power 4 program. Rising NIL price tags and roster limits send players packing. And the same factors leave them more vulnerable than a year ago.
Already, 10 ex-Huskers have landed at power programs, with several others looking at options. The spring portal period promises more stress. Ultimately, it’s a game of musical chairs. Without enough chairs.
6. The emphasis on the Kansas City area will continue, with added staff responsibility for Jamar Mozee. Who’s had a better six months at Nebraska than Mozee? The former Lee’s Summit (Mo.) North coach came to Lincoln in July after a short stint at UCF.
Mozee ran point as Nebraska signed his son, receiver Isaiah Mozee, linebacker Dawson Merritt and offensive lineman Juju Marks out of metro K.C. It then signed added five-star defensive end Williams Nwaneri, who played for Mozee, out of the portal from Missouri, and K.C.-connected linebacker Dasan McCullough from Oklahoma.
Every week, seemingly, the Huskers are putting down stronger roots in Kansas City. It’s turned Mozee, 44, into a valuable piece. He’s listed as a senior football assistant. No matter Mozee’s title, Rhule will find more ways to involve him.
7. Nebraska baseball and softball will return to the NCAA postseason. And one of them will host.
Will Bolt’s baseball team won the Big Ten tournament last year but ran into the wrong team (Florida) and the wrong man (Jac Caglianone) in the NCAA Stillwater regional. If the Huskers took care of business in midweek games against the likes of Creighton, Kansas and South Dakota State, they might have hosted a regional in 2024.
For Rhonda Revelle, set for her 33rd year in charge of Nebraska softball, the fall return of Bahl bodes well. She suffered a torn ACL in the season opener last season, pouring cold water on the energy built in the months that followed Bahl’s transfer home after she helped lead Oklahoma to back-to-back national championships.
Back in the circle, Bahl has two years left to pitch for the Huskers — without the intense scrutiny of a year ago.
8. Raiola will rep Nebraska at Big Ten media days in July. He will handle himself with the poise expected from a returning 13-game starter at quarterback. Raiola sought to lead from the front as a freshman. He never missed a media session, even after the November loss against UCLA, in which he was injured and could not finish.
Nationally and around the Big Ten, social media grew agitated at Raiola for his attempts to emulate Patrick Mahomes. Raiola will get the Mahomes questions in Indianapolis. He’ll take it in stride and appear comfortable as himself, a 20-year-old sophomore.
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9. Nebraska (and Cincinnati) will sell out Arrowhead Stadium. The Bearcats of the Big 12 will serve as the designated home team for the Aug. 28 opener. It will not look or sound like a home game for Cincinnati.
At the home of the Kansas City Chiefs, it might as well be Memorial Stadium South on that Thursday night. The Huskers last played at Arrowhead in the 2006 Big 12 championship against Oklahoma. Expect a party-like atmosphere and a 76,000-seat stadium filled with red for the debut of Rhule’s third team.
10. Nebraska volleyball will win a national championship. Keeping with the Kansas City theme, John Cook’s team will pack the 18,000-seat T-Mobile Center in December and walk away with the trophy that went to Penn State in 2024. The Nittany Lions shocked the Huskers by rebounding from a two-set deficit to beat Nebraska in the semifinal round.
Nebraska will open the 2025 season by hosting the AVCA First Serve Showcase at the 15,500-seat Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln. The Huskers return All-Americans Andi Jackson, Harper Murray and Bergen Reilly and stars in the supporting cast. And Cook’s freshman class appears so good that he might stay out of the portal entirely this winter.
(Top photo: Dylan Widger / Imagn Images)
