{"id":271199,"date":"2025-08-08T08:34:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T08:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/271199\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T08:34:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T08:34:11","slug":"greg-mcelroy-fights-for-nebraska-as-a-college-football-playoff-contender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/271199\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg McElroy fights for Nebraska as a College Football Playoff contender"},"content":{"rendered":"

Year Three is when a big step has been made based on the college resum\u00e9 of Matt Rhule<\/a>. He could now be set to do that at the third program of his career this fall with Nebraska<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Greg McElroy recently tiered the teams in the Big Ten coming into this season on \u2018Always College Football\u2019<\/a>. The \u2018Huskers<\/a> made the playoff contender tier, along with USC<\/a>, Michigan<\/a>, Indiana<\/a>, Washington<\/a>, and Illinois<\/a>, based on the improvement he thinks they\u2019re trending to make, based on how they already grew a season ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, there was a lot of breakthrough when you look at 2024,\u201d McElroy said. \u201cYou end the bowl drought, the one everyone was talking about for a really long time\u2026Matt Rhule? He\u2019s done a great job over the course of his tenure of getting teams to the next level in year number three. They had some pretty impressive moments, like the win against Colorado<\/a>, the win against Wisconsin<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things, I think, to like about what was built in \u201924 and what can be sustained into \u201925.\u201d<\/p>\n

This trend has shown through two previous programs for Rhule during the 2010s. Temple<\/a> went from 2-10 and 6-6 to 10-4 and 10-3 from 2013 to 2016 and Baylor<\/a> went from 1-11 and 7-6 to 11-3 from 2017 to 2019, bringing those college teams to 16-33 (.327) in years one and two but to 31-10 (.756) from year three on. <\/p>\n

Nebraska didn\u2019t make too much of an improvement from season one at 5-7 to season two at 7-6, beyond ending that eight-year bowl streak as they won the Pinstripe Bowl over Boston College<\/a>. But the Huskers could now be set to make that move in season three for Rhule<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of those things he mentioned, McElroy likes where the Cornhuskers are at on both sides of the football. That\u2019s with both sides seeing changes<\/a> as OC Dana Holgerson<\/a> tries to, with a second-year star starter in QB Dylan Raiola<\/a>, improve a unit that has finished towards the back of the country in offense by averaging 20.8 points and 335.9 yards of offense. On the other side, DC John Butler takes over a unit that has inversely been one of the nation\u2019s best, allowing just 18.9 points and 310.7 yards per game.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Holgerson) has always been great offensively\u2026He is a guy that wants to spread it around. He\u2019s a guy that wants to get you in favorable situations and then run the football. And he\u2019s also been great with quarterbacks<\/a> in the past as well,\u201d McElroy said. \u201cHe\u2019s got a five-star guy in Dylan Raiola. He did a lot of really nice things last year, but I do think there\u2019s another level that his game can go to and I\u2019d be surprised if he doesn\u2019t get there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey decide to kind of keep things going in that same direction (from Tony White<\/a>) by promoting John Butler from within<\/a>. You have a longtime mentor in Phil Snow<\/a>, who\u2019s going to kind of serve as an associate head coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

McElroy also thinks Nebraska has a manageable schedule, too<\/a>. The Huskers open with a neutral site matchup in Kansas City before four consecutive home games into October, essentially going on to play all of their toughest games at home, besides the final road trip to Happy Valley on November 22nd. Still, all things considered, it\u2019s a slate that, if they can make the most of their games at Memorial Stadium, could have the \u2018Huskers in contention for the Big Ten Championship<\/a> and potentially for a bid in the College Football Playoff<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this team has a chance to have a really nice record, but they\u2019ve got to play well there in Lincoln,\u201d McElroy said. \u201cIf they can play well in Lincoln and pull of a couple upsets, they could very well find themselves in the mix for the Big Ten race on the line towards the middle or back end of the schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Rhule has never failed to win 10-plus games in a third year or beyond as a college coach. That kind of record would be all that Nebraska needs to justify this tier as a team that could contend for a spot within the Big Ten and for the CFP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Year Three is when a big step has been made based on the college resum\u00e9 of Matt Rhule.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,34233,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-271199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-matt-rhule-94-state-college-area","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114992228873859206","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}