Nebraska needs to beat Iowa to call the 2025 season a success

Being the head coach at Nebraska football isn’t an easy gig. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

In his third season as the head coach, Matt Rhule has done a solid job. He hasn’t set the world on fire. Rhule certainly isn’t Curt Cignetti.

But he has made progress with the Nebraska football program. Regardless of what happens on Friday, the Huskers are going to a bowl game for a second straight season. They will have two winning seasons in a row.

That is progress. Just not as much progress as Nebraska football fans wanted or expected. There is still a game to play, two actually, but only one that can change the perception of this season: Iowa.

By golly, Nebraska needs to beat Iowa.

Rhule needs a win over Kirk Ferentz. He flat-out needs a big win in November. Beating Wisconsin last year was nice. Yet, that was a five-win team. It achieved progress, but that win by itself isn’t all that meaningful.

It’s still one of Rhule’s best Big Ten wins. He’s only got one, heading into this weekend over a Big Ten program that finished a season with a winning record in league play.

In year three, that’s not acceptable. It’s time to put on the big boy pants and win some real games. So far this season, like the past two, Nebraska struck out.

Beating seven-win Cincinnati was nice, but Nebraska plays in the Big Ten. Iowa and Minnesota are the teams Nebraska needs to start beating before it can think of the others, and we know what happened against Minnesota.

Iowa is the last chance. At least for this season.

After two straight three-point losses, progress, or in other words, a successful season, means beating the Hawkeyes. Otherwise, it will feel like this program is stuck in neutral, which isn’t where it was supposed to be after three years of Matt Rhule as the head coach.

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