Last year the only Big Ten win for Nebraska was a huge 56-7 win against Northwestern. They ran for 427 yards, and besides Adrian Martinez who ran for 50 and threw for 202 yards, they return their big rushers. They did lose 8 players in total to the NFL 3 drafted and 5 free agents. At QB they add Casey Thompson a grad transfer from Texas. Thomson spent four years at Texas (2018-21), playing in 19 games with 10 starts. He completed nearly 64 percent of his passes (185-of-290) for 2,422 yards and 30 touchdowns while rushing 73 times for 210 yards and five scores. Thompson had three career games with five or more touchdowns – all in 2021 – the most in Texas history.
Northwestern will look to be better this year, last year they won 3 games vs. Indiana St., Ohio and Rutgers. Ryan Hilinski returns most likely as the start from last years team. They do have other options at QB and who knows if the will be the only one to play as he was last year going 25 for 39, 6.6 yard per completion a total of 256 yards, 1 TD and a 28.8 QBR. Last years game as they were behind for most of it the Wildcats only ran for 37 yards.
This won’t be in front of the home crowd in Lincoln and who knows what kind of weather will be in Dublin, August is usually the most rain they see in Ireland. The line Nebraska -12 and a total of 50.5, so we should see a team total open about 31.5 or 32 for the Huskers and around 18.5 or 19 for the Wildcats. College is always difficult and all the change in players can bring much different results than previous years. Frost in his fifth year as Huskers coach is the first to start with four losing seasons since Bill Jennings 1957-61 who had five losing seasons. The Huskers lost 9 games last year by single digits and were often turnover plagued in those close loses. They very likely will start out 3-0 with Northwestern here then North Dakota and Georgia Southern before playing Oklahoma and then its Big Ten the rest of the way. Last year they put up 56 against NW and averaged 27.9, they may be able to get into the mid thirties or more here. UPDATE :
Now one day till game day we see that the consensus money is on the under 50.5 here. As far as that side play we have seen the line up to 13 and now back down to 11 as television pros have proclaimed too many points. We still see 58 % of the cash and 64 % of the tickets on Nebraska laying those points. I would say this if you wait and try to get in a live bet wager if your looking at the Huskers then you will most likely see a better number, unless of course it goes a one way landslide and Nebraska is just a better team than most analysts think they are. Frost is reportedly on the hot seat in Lincoln and with this being the first QB he has brought in himself via grad transfer from Texas, if Nebraska is gonna have a winning year or more than a 3 win year it starts in Ireland. While I would recommend maybe trying your luck at a live bet I think Nebraska wins this game. Of course some say take Fitzgerald and the points in Dublin, My pick is Nebraska -11. As far as money line plays, well in my opinion college football is the land of upsets and laying -425 here may win but in the long term isn’t a great strategy, whereas if your looking at the entire day one board there will be some upsets somewhere in there, +345 is an intriguing number if you feel like those Wildcats are gonna have a chance.
UPDATE: Well I didn’t wager a dollar and once I saw Northwestern was gonna be able to move the ball I understood why the experts all said take them!