Huskers become bowl-eligible with dominant 44-25 win over Wisconsin

After weeks of hitting a wall, the Nebraska Huskers football team finally broke through on Saturday.

With a dominant 44-25 win over the Wisconsin Badgers, the Huskers not only ended their four-game losing streak and became bowl-eligible — ending the longest bowl drought among Power 4 schools at seven years — and got their first win against the Badgers since 2012, but seemingly took a big step forward.

In the second game under new offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen, the Huskers scored their most points in a game under Matt Rhule and the most against a Power 4 opponent since a 56-7 blowout of Northwestern on Oct. 2, 2021.

Rhule, quarterback Dylan Raiola and others had expressed optimism with the offense's direction in the couple of weeks since Holgorsen joined the program, but after the unit put up only 13 points last weekend against USC and scored only two field goals on three red zone trips, the Big Red followed it up with a big showing. The Huskers scored eight times and all seven times in the red zone — five via touchdowns — including on six straight drives in the second half.

Nebraska's 180 rushing yards and 473 total yards were its most since the season-opener against UTEP, and they came on the backs of several big-time performances.

Holgorsen and Rhule have talked about players needing to make plays, and several guys finally delivered.

Sophomore running back Emmett Johnson had never reached 100 scrimmage yards in a collegiate game before Saturday but totaled 113 rushing yards (on 7.1 yards per carry) and 198 total yards from scrimmage. Raiola finished 28-of-38 for 293 yards and a touchdown, his most passing yards since Sept. 20 against Illinois and best completion rate since against Northern Iowa a week earlier. And freshman Jacory Barney Jr. had a career-high nine catches and 85 receiving yards, breaking the school record for catches by a true freshman (was 40 receptions by Wan’Dale Robinson in 2019).

Defensively, the Huskers still gave up some big plays but also rallied to the ball all day, forced a couple of turnovers and came up with some big-time plays.

Nebraska still has plenty of room to improve but Saturday was a big step, and a long time coming for a program that desperately needed that.