LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) – A week after their biggest win under head coach Matt Rhule, the Huskers hope to carry their momentum into Memorial Stadium on Saturday and remain undefeated in the Big Ten Conference next week.

No. 23 Nebraska (2-0) hosts Northern Iowa (2-0) of the FCS on Saturday in the final non-conference game of the 2024 season before facing Illinois next Friday.

GAME INFORMATION

• WHEN: 6:30 PM, Saturday, September 14
• WHERE: Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Nebraska.
• WATCH: Big Ten Network
• LISTEN: Huskers Radio Network
• VEGAS ODDS: Northern Iowa +32.5, O/U 47.5

The Huskers are in top form after a 28-10 primetime win over Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes on Saturday night in a game that drew 6.3 million viewers nationwide — the most of any Week 2 game aside from the Top 10 clash between Texas and Michigan.

The Colorado game quickly propelled Nebraska to the forefront of the college football conversation, signaling a return to national prominence. A No. 23 appearance in the AP Top 25 confirmed those signals. With viewership comes expectations, however, and now the pressure is on for the Huskers to produce a quality follow-up this weekend.

“You come here to have high expectations,” Matt Rhule said at a news conference Monday. “You come here to play in big games. You come here to play in front of that crowd. That’s why you come here, so we expect you to be ranked. Whatever it is, 23rd, 24th, that’s not where we want to be. So (we’re going to try to) go 1-0 every week and see what happens.”

Their opponent is an undefeated UNI team, which has already won over FCS opponents Valpraiso and St. Thomas Minnesota.

On paper, the Panthers can’t match the prolific Colorado offense that shut down Nebraska last week, but they do have one of the best running backs in all of college football in Tye Edwards. Edwards is a 6-foot-3, 225-pound wrecking ball who made his presence felt in the first two games of his senior season, rushing for 315 yards on just 30 carries.

“I have a lot of respect for what they did there (at Northern Iowa),” Rhule said. “I know they know how to win when they play Northern Iowa. They expect to win. They’ve been in places like this before. … It’s a scary game, in that sense, because Northern Iowa knows how to win.”

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