Husker Big Red Daily: Early odds for Rutgers, Dana Holgorsen fallout, and a Big Ten title

Welcome to Husker Big Red Daily, your daily stop for the latest Nebraska football news, recruiting buzz, transfer portal updates, and Huskers headlines. Here’s a quick look at the latest storylines surrounding Nebraska athletics.

It was an eventful weekend for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. It started unceremoniously as the Nebraska football team suffered another unlikely loss as a road favorite against Illinois.

Nebraska football outgained Illinois by more than 50 yards, outrushed Illinois by more than 50 yards and didn’t turn the ball over. Since 2014, Big Ten teams that have done that have a combined record of 259-3.

So naturally, Nebraska lost the game by double digits. The turning point was a fake field goal by Illinois, which led to a touchdown, while the Huskers missed a chip-shot field goal, then ran an empty formation later on fourth-and-1, one of two times Nebraska football turned the ball over on downs inside Illinois territory.

That led to the firing of Dana Holgorsen on Saturday, just days after Matt Rhule praised him for being such a great offensive mind. Holgorsen is a good coach. It just didn’t work at Nebraska, and this was a move that happened one week too late.

Nebraska joins Georgia, Notre Dame and UCLA as the only teams in college football that have outgained their opponents in every game this season. Of course, all those teams are ranked in the top five, while the Huskers aren’t even bowl-eligible.

Nebraska can earn a sixth win this Saturday at Rutgers. The 11:30 a.m. CST game on the Big Ten Network has the Huskers as an early 13.5-point favorite. The Huskers are 7-2 against the spread this season but have dropped the last two after covering in the first seven games.

Nebraska volleyball clinches another Big Ten title

After sweeping two ranked teams in the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington, the Huskers clinched a share of the Big Ten volleyball championship for the fourth consecutive year.

Nebraska still has three matches to go. Just one more win will clinch a third consecutive outright Big Ten championship for the Huskers, who would then get the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten volleyball tournament.

Nebraska basketball teams both win

Fred Hoiberg’s team notched an impressive win over Providence on Saturday, a team ranked in the top 60 of the KenPom rankings. It was a neutral-court win, and the Huskers didn’t even shoot the ball well from 3-point range. Defense won the day, although Pryce Sandfort made four from downtown.

The Nebraska women’s basketball team also improved to 2-0 after a rout of Western Illinois, a team that made the NCAA tournament last season, 98-35. Britt Prince scored 19 points to cross the 1,000-point barrier for her career.

Amiah Hargrove contributed 17 points and a game-high eight rebounds in just 22 minutes, while freshman Ashlyn Koupal pitched in a career-high 16 points to go with four rebounds, three assists and three steals.

Nebraska wrestling wins, too

The Nebraska wrestling team opened the season with a 28-9 dual victory over 20th-ranked Wyoming. Here are the results of the dual. Nebraska travels to No. 2 Oklahoma State on Friday, Nov. 13, for a top-three showdown. The match begins at 7 p.m. CT and will stream on ESPNU.

No. 3 Nebraska 28, No. 20 Wyoming 9

125: No. 4 Vincent Robinson dec. Isaiah Harrison, 8-2 (NEB 3, WYO 0)
133: No. 16 Luke Willochell dec. No. 7 Jacob Van Dee, 5-4 (NEB 3, WYO 3)
141: Lincoln Sledzianowski major dec. Derek Barrows, 11-2 (NEB 7, WYO 3)
149: No. 5 Anthony Echemendia major dec. Austin Collins, 17-4 (NEB 11, WYO 3)
157: No. 3 Antrell Taylor major dec. Antonio Avila, 17-4 (NEB 15, WYO 3)
165: Meyer Shapiro tech. fall Manuel Rojas, 19-3 (NEB 20, WYO 3)
174: No. 2 Christopher Minto dec. No. 32 Riley Davis, 10-4 (NEB 23, WYO 3)
184: No. 6 Eddie Neitenbach dec. Ethan DeLeon, 13-8 (NEB 23, WYO 6)
197: No. 4 Joey Novak dec. No. 5 Camden McDanel, 4-1 (NEB 23, WYO 9)
HWT: No. 14 Cade Ziola tech. fall Winston McBride, 19-4 (NEB 28, WYO 9)

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