Craig Has The Scout - Nebraska 2026

Coming Up

Who: Nebraska Cornhuskers

When: Friday, November 6, 2026, at 7:00 PM

Where: Home Sweet Home

How: FOX (National Broadcast)

Opponent Primer:

Head Coach: Matt Rhule.

Matt Rhule is the guy who stands up in the middle of the bar, announces he's covering everyone's tab, gives a ten minute speech on community, shared purpose, and, then confidently slides a black card across the counter. Everybody cheers. Then his card gets declined. Fat Joe will sing longingly about how it should be about us, it’s about trust.

Trust in Nebraska football is a roller coaster that has become almost impossible to describe without sounding cruel. At this point, the Huskers might be the most relentlessly optimistic fan base in the sport, and you can understand how it came to pass. Rhule got Nebraska to a bowl game after seven straight years without one. They’ve opened their pocketbooks to buy highly rated quarterbacks. The Huskers opened 5-0 this season, their best start since 2016 and rule broke into the mainstream playing himself on HBO's Lanterns. His black card works at the MAC store. The problem is the expensive stuff. Rhule is now 0-10 against ranked opponents at Nebraska. The Huskers have lost 31 straight games against AP Top 25 teams. His record in one-score games sits at 7-15. He’s led every game going into the fourth quarter, and is on a three game losing streak. Every time Nebraska reaches the register with something that matters, the system flags the transaction.

The pitch was a good one, which is why this stings. Rhule built his reputation turning broken programs into functional ones. Rhule turned Baylor from one win into eleven in two years, and his first three seasons in Lincoln produced as many wins as the previous five combined. The foundation is real, and nobody serious argues otherwise. But Year 3 was supposed to be the leap. Instead, Nebraska started 7-3 and lost its final three games by a combined 73 points. Year 4 offered a fresh supply of hope and a 5-0 start, then the same movie started again, and now the Huskers sit at 5-3 and 2-3 in the Big Ten. After Indiana he said his team was disappointed but not discouraged. After Oregon he took responsibility while implying that Nebraska would resemble a top-ten team if the fourth quarter weren’t allowed. Individually, each comment is defensible. Collectively, they sound like someone arguing that if five plays had gone differently, he’d have won the game.

The scoreboard, unfortunately, is uninterested in culture, process, or podcasts. Yes, Rhule has a podcast, and it’s called House Rhules. The scoreboard does not subscribe. It counts wins and losses, and after years of hearing about what’s coming next, Nebraska fans aren’t looking for another discussion on development. They’d just like to see the card clear on something expensive, preferably on a Friday night in Champaign against an Illini team that just beat Oregon.

Offensive Style: Air Raid staples incorporating QB mobility with tempo trapping defensive personnel

Dana Holgorsen is one of the last surviving original Air Raid apostles. He caught passes for Hal Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan, followed Mumme and Mike Leach to Valdosta State, bounced through Mississippi College and Wingate, and eventually landed at Texas Tech, where Leach had him coach inside receivers and preach the gospel. He then took to the road as an evangelist bringing the offense with him and spreading the word. He helped turn Case Keenum into an entry into the record book at Houston, gave Mike Gundy an offense that led the nation at Oklahoma State, helped produce a Biletnikoff winner in Justin Blackmon, and won an Orange Bowl at West Virginia by beating Clemson 70-33. He also built a house out of cross-laminated timber because apparently living in a normal house would have been off-brand. Houston eventually brought him back as head coach, fired him after one rough season in the Big 12, and now Nebraska fans are helping pay off that buyout, which is a wonderfully inefficient form of cross-conference cooperation.

His arrival in Lincoln followed a sequence of events that only makes sense if you've been covering Nebraska for a living. Matt Rhule hired Holgorsen as an analyst on a Tuesday, handed him the offense six days later, and reassigned Marcus Satterfield to tight ends. Nebraska football has spent the better part of two decades searching for answers in increasingly creative places, from Bill Callahan to Mike Reilly to the Air Raid originalist.

Holgorsen knows he’s not in Lubbock anymore, and has adapted his offense to meet Big Red expectation. The offense itself is still Air Raid at its core, just with a few decades of adaptation. The passing game foundation remains the familiar Mumme-Leach catalog: mesh, stick, four verticals, shallow crossers, and a quarterback throwing enough short completions to make defenses lose their patience. Holgorsen's twist is his willingness to run the ball more than his mentors were. Inside zone anchors everything, with motion, tempo, and formation variation designed to make defenses fit the run incorrectly and pay for it over the top. The quick passing game keeps the chains moving and the quarterback upright. Then, once the safeties start cheating downhill, Holgorsen does what Air Raid coaches have always done best: he takes the deep shot and collects the debt. At Nebraska, that formula has produced a Big Ten Running Back of the Year in Emmett Johnson and a school-record completion percentage from Dylan Raiola.

Defensive Style: 4-2-5 single gap front with zone match coverage concepts.

Rob Aurich is a linebacker from Michigan who went to Minnesota Duluth, won two Division II national titles under Bob Nielson, was named first-team All-American, and then moved to coaching. Aurich moved to Bemidji State as special teams and linebackers coach while earning an MBA there. In year 2, he was the defensive coordinator, then he reunited with Nielson at South Dakota, where he ran special teams and coached inside linebackers for four years. In 2022, he moved to Idaho under Jason Eck, where he coordinated a top-25 defense in both seasons and rotated defensive linemen like a man running a very aggressive time-share. In 2024, he moved to San Diego State where his profile really took off. Working for Sean Lewis meant living opposite one of the fastest offenses in college football, which is an excellent way to find out whether your defensive ideas actually work. Aurich started coaching the edge defenders, inherited the coordinator job when Eric Schmidt left for North Dakota, and immediately produced results. Three shutouts, a Broyles Award nomination, and one of the better Group of Five defenses in the country later, Nebraska came calling. The bowl game hadn't even arrived before Aurich was on his way to Lincoln, which is generally a sign your stock is doing pretty well.

The defense is a 4-2-5, a departure from the 3-3-5 Rhule had run since he arrived at Nebraska. Aurich’s defense is focused on his defensive front. The edge rushers are the stars of the show. At San Diego State they produced most of the sacks. At Nebraska, the sack numbers have already jumped. The defensive line rotation matters just as much. Aurich famously played 11 defensive linemen against Oregon while at Idaho, treating pass rushers the way some people treat batteries: if they're even slightly drained, replace them immediately. The philosophy produced one of the nation's most efficient defenses in 2025, finishing near the top of the country in pass-defense efficiency, red-zone defense, and defensive touchdowns while allowing just 4.4 yards per play. In other words, Aurich's answer to most football problems is another pass rusher, and so far he's accumulated enough evidence to suggest that's not the worst way to live.