Was 2025 really an improvement over 2024?

[Irv]

Many of us seem to be assuming the fact that 2025 was an incremental improvement over 2024. But was it really?

NU had six losses in 2024.

2 were to playoff teams. The other 4 were competitive games.

We only suffered one blowout loss - to playoff-bound Indiana.

We played the national champions on the road about as closely as any team they played that was not Michigan (21-17 loss).

Best win was a manhandling of CU, who finished the regular season ranked at 9-3.


2025 we had 5 losses.

Absent a Michigan win tomorrow, none of those are playoff teams.

We were blown out 3 times including by a mediocre Minnesota team and with 2 of those to end the season.

The best win was 7-4 Cincinnati, week zero.


You can grade on a curve a little for TJ, but the schedule (as indicated above) was also quite a bit easier.

I don’t think it’s a lock to say this team is better than last year’s, which I think is a problem if you are trying to buy into Rhule’s vision of how he is going to build this.

 

[Steveweiser316]

Many of us seem to be assuming the fact that 2025 was an incremental improvement over 2024. But was it really?

NU had six losses in 2024.

2 were to playoff teams. The other 4 were competitive games.

We only suffered one blowout loss - to playoff-bound Indiana.

We played the national champions on the road about as closely as any team they played that was not Michigan (21-17 loss).

Best win was a manhandling of CU, who finished the regular season ranked at 9-3.


2025 we had 5 losses.

Absent a Michigan win tomorrow, none of those are playoff teams.

We were blown out 3 times including by a mediocre Minnesota team and with 2 of those to end the season.

The best win was 7-4 Cincinnati, week zero.


You can grade on a curve a little for TJ, but the schedule (as indicated above) was also quite a bit easier.

I don’t think it’s a lock to say this team is better than last year’s, which I think is a problem if you are trying to buy into Rhule’s vision of how he is going to build this.

We looked better overall as a team at times this year compared to last. However, if there was “progress” I think it was minimal and only amounted to 1 additional regular season win. I understand Dylan got hurt but that’s not the reason why we got blasted by Minn, Penn State and Cockeye.

 

[Bootleg11]

Raiola doesn’t get hurt yeah I think it is because I think they win that USC game.

The most disappointing thing to me was the absolute miss on the DL.

I’m struggling with completely faulting the OL because they ran the ball so well but the pass protection was disgusting by the OTs.

But misreading what this DL was going to be by Rhule in a league where it is so so important to be big and deep there…that is what makes me scratch my head.

Honestly the defense as a whole I think there were a lot of personnel misses. Safety and LB were also not upgraded enough.

Why is this team falling part in November every year. Depth? Worn down?

Also just thinking about the last game…I don’t get how Cockeye can run bootleg like they do but Nebraska’s play action while running for 200+ yards is a complete disaster.

 

[Irv]

We looked better overall as a team at times this year compared to last. However, if there was “progress” I think it was minimal and only amounted to 1 additional regular season win. I understand Dylan got hurt but that’s not the reason why we got blasted by Minn, Penn State and Cockeye.

Special teams significantly better. Which is a red flag to why the whole thing was about the same.

 

[vailhusker]

Many of us seem to be assuming the fact that 2025 was an incremental improvement over 2024. But was it really?

NU had six losses in 2024.

2 were to playoff teams. The other 4 were competitive games.

We only suffered one blowout loss - to playoff-bound Indiana.

We played the national champions on the road about as closely as any team they played that was not Michigan (21-17 loss).

Best win was a manhandling of CU, who finished the regular season ranked at 9-3.


2025 we had 5 losses.

Absent a Michigan win tomorrow, none of those are playoff teams.

We were blown out 3 times including by a mediocre Minnesota team and with 2 of those to end the season.

The best win was 7-4 Cincinnati, week zero.


You can grade on a curve a little for TJ, but the schedule (as indicated above) was also quite a bit easier.

I don’t think it’s a lock to say this team is better than last year’s, which I think is a problem if you are trying to buy into Rhule’s vision of how he is going to build this.

 

[Sous Chef]

Many of us seem to be assuming the fact that 2025 was an incremental improvement over 2024. But was it really?

NU had six losses in 2024.

2 were to playoff teams. The other 4 were competitive games.

We only suffered one blowout loss - to playoff-bound Indiana.

We played the national champions on the road about as closely as any team they played that was not Michigan (21-17 loss).

Best win was a manhandling of CU, who finished the regular season ranked at 9-3.


2025 we had 5 losses.

Absent a Michigan win tomorrow, none of those are playoff teams.

We were blown out 3 times including by a mediocre Minnesota team and with 2 of those to end the season.

The best win was 7-4 Cincinnati, week zero.


You can grade on a curve a little for TJ, but the schedule (as indicated above) was also quite a bit easier.

I don’t think it’s a lock to say this team is better than last year’s, which I think is a problem if you are trying to buy into Rhule’s vision of how he is going to build this.

To me more important is we seemed to be gaining momentum at the end of the season. The infuriating fashion in which we lost to Cockeye is so much more preferable to this years buttfucking from an optics standpoint. We won the bowl game and things looked promising. We are losing to whoever they decide to feed our corpse to in the bowl game and will finish with the exact same record as last year but there won't be a single thing that will give us hope. So short answer no we are actually worse this year by a good margin.