Nebraska Is 5-0 and Has Lost 31 Straight to Ranked Teams: Indiana Comes to Lincoln Saturday
Nebraska is 5-0 and 2-0 in the Big Ten. Nebraska has also lost 31 consecutive games against ranked opponents. On Saturday it hosts No. 7 Indiana, which has won 21 straight and is the reigning national champion.
The last time Nebraska beat a ranked team was September 17, 2016, against No. 22 Oregon. Indiana has not lost since a first-round playoff exit at Notre Dame on December 20, 2024.
One of those streaks ends in Lincoln.
Matt Rhule is being careful about how much has changed
Asked whether his program has grown since the 2024 loss to Indiana, Rhule said, “I hope it has grown.” He added, dryly, “I think we were ranked in one of the polls at that point, right?”
Then the more useful answer: “We’re just a better football team.”
He also admitted to going back to the film. “I went back and watched it this week. So, I always look back,” Rhule said, calling that 2024 game “just poorly done by us as coaches.”
A head coach who publicly takes the blame for a two-year-old loss while 5-0 is a coach who thinks the roster is finally good enough for the honesty to be useful.
Anthony Colandrea is the reason Nebraska is 5-0
Colandrea went Virginia to UNLV to Nebraska, signing after Dylan Raiola left via the portal following two seasons. He has 13 passing touchdowns against two interceptions and a career-best 160 quarterback rating.
He has also been running. Colandrea has 174 rushing yards over the last two games, including a career-high 108 against Maryland, and rose to a season-high 14th in CBS Sports’ quarterback power rankings.
Nebraska ranks 24th in total offense, up from 80th last season. That is the single clearest measure of what Rhule means by better football team.
Running back Jamal Rule is back for Indiana after missing Week 5 with an ankle injury.
Indiana’s quarterback has not thrown an interception
Josh Hoover is 76-of-107 for 1,101 yards with 15 touchdowns and zero interceptions through five games. That is a 71 percent completion rate with no turnovers through the air against a Big Ten schedule.
Indiana is 5-0 and 2-0, same as Nebraska, and ranked No. 7 in the October 4 AP Top 25. The difference is that Indiana has won a national championship and 21 consecutive games.
What makes this actually interesting
A 31-game streak against ranked teams is not bad luck. It is a decade of a program not being good enough on the days that counted. Nebraska has gone 5-0 against unranked opposition and is now being asked the only question that has mattered since 2016.
Indiana has won everything for almost two years and arrives with a quarterback who has not thrown a pick. It is the reigning champion, on the road, favored.
Nebraska has a 160-rated quarterback, the 24th-ranked offense in the country and a coach who watched the 2024 tape and called his own coaching poor. If that is not enough on Saturday, the streak probably reaches 32 and the conversation in Lincoln changes again.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
