It was ugly football. “Bowling shoe ugly,” as the great pro wrestling voice Jim Ross likes to say. Ugly, yet weirdly entertaining.*

*If you could tolerate penalty flags.

But it was also concerning. Twice down nine points, to a team that got mauled on their own home field and was alleged to have “quit” a week ago. In recent vintage Cornhusker football, these types of moments usually end up in a snowball that devours everything in scarlet and cream. More accurately, the Big Red allows these snowballs to find and swallow them up. Yet in this odd little year of college football 2026, something occurred that turned momentum Nebraska’s way. Two somethings, as a matter of fact.

The first occurred near the end of the first quarter. The turnover-fault-free Anthony Colandrea gave up his first real interception of the season. A poor throw into double coverage in a futile attempt to convert a drive-extending third down. That led to a field goal and a 16-7 Maryland advantage. Nebraska, looking desperate for the first time this season, backed themselves up with one of their school-record 16 penalties. On a 2nd and 16, Colandrea retreated into his own backfield and was smothered by a pair of Maryland defenders. But the second of the pair came in a little late and a little too hard. Yellow flag. Unnecessary roughness. A third and 27 turned into first and ten. A drive was saved, maybe with it, a game.

The Huskers cashed in five plays later after one of Kwazi Gilmer’s 11 catches set up Nebraska in the scoring zone. A Mekhi Nelson touchdown made it 16-14 Maryland.

But Maryland wasn’t done. They stopped a Nebraska fourth-down attempt, got the ball in good field position, a rare explosive run play from DeJuan Williams; again, the Fighting Turtles were up nine, 23-14 midway through the second quarter.

Nebraska again couldn’t get out of their own way as the following drive was handicapped by a holding penalty, one of several that frustrated their head coach in the postgame press conference, and the Huskers were forced to punt.

Here was the biggest turnaround of them all. Maryland was driving. The Huskers were guilty of two defensive holding penalties. The Terps were threatening to go up 16. One of Nebraska’s biggest issues in recent years is the lack of “momentum turners,” players who could make big plays in moments where games were slipping away. Enter safety Dwayne McDougle III, who beautifully read a 3rd-and-7 quick slant, jumped the route and raced 81 yards to the end zone to execute a potential 14-point swing.

While neither of those moments helped give Nebraska the lead, they did the things that far too seldom seem to happen with 21st-century Cornhusker football; they breathed new life into a team that needed it. Then these new-look Huskers took full advantage.

With a perfectly executed two-minute drill at the end of the half, Nebraska had a 28-23 lead at the break. A lead that didn’t seem earned given the statistics.

The second half was a much tamer, better-played half. The Huskers, despite a 0-0 stalemate in the third quarter, scored 21 fourth-quarter points behind the arm and legs of Colandrea, the reliability of Gilmer and a buttoned-up Blackshirt defense. Despite the oddities, despite the mistakes, despite not having a good running back run game for the second straight week, here was Nebraska easily covering yet another game and setting up a once-in-a-generation showdown with Indiana (more on that to come).

The Big Ten has done what folks anticipated it would do: expose holes in Nebraska that Ohio, Bowling Green and North Dakota weren’t good enough to do. Yet here are the Huskers, 5-0 for the first time in ten years, making the stressful less stressful by game’s end.

Teams don’t have to be perfect to have a perfect record. This team fits that sentence…perfectly.

Bring on the Hoosiers.

The final numbers will show 36 carries for 209 yards, a nice 5.8 yards per carry. But the reality is they have had to break glass in case of emergency in back-to-back weeks. Anthony Colandrea accounted for 108 career-high rushing yards versus Maryland and if you look at the last two weeks, it’s 174 of Nebraska’s 366 rushing yards, or 48%. That is not sustainable. Jamal Rule missed the game due to the injury he suffered against Michigan State. It is clear his presence is needed for this running back room to shoulder more of the load.

For the first time this year, Nebraska passed (39) more times than they ran (36), which is usually a sign of distress. Since 2004, the Huskers are just 21-51 in those games. Rhule’s teams are 5-6 when the ball is in the air more than on the ground.

Thanks to a couple of busted assignments and tackle whiffs, the Blackshirts allowed 141 yards rushing to Maryland, good for 5.6 yards per carry. Since 2004, allowing more than 5.0 YPC has been a losing proposition for the Big Red (19-54) and this is the third time in ten such games the Huskers have come out on top under Matt Rhule.

The defense didn’t bring Malik Washington to the ground much (only one sack), but the eight QB pressures were a season high and the most for a Nebraska defense since 2024 Colorado (10). While the Huskers fell short of the 25% HAVOC threshold for the first time this year, they barely missed: 24.6% (17 HAVOC plays out of 69 snaps faced).

Red Zone Efficiency

A perfect 5 for 5 day in the Red Zone brings Nebraska’s season numbers to 21 scores in 22 red zone trips with the only “failure” being a kill-the-clock moment at the end of the Michigan State game. The Huskers are also 19 for 22 on scoring touchdowns, with just two field goals they have settled for inside the opponents’ 20-yard line. Last year’s TD percentage was only 56.6%, so the extra four points are happening with regularity.

Turnover Margin

Huskers went +1 on turnovers thanks to the McDougle and Kade Pietrzak interceptions. As impressive as McDougle’s read was, Pietrzak’s was even better. The big rush end faked a pass rush and stepped back in front of a ball intended for Chris Durr Jr., the nation’s leading pass catcher. The Washington fastball was gathered in like a catcher snapping out of his crouch to snag a wild pitch. It was a great defensive play call and a better pick. The Huskers are now 13-1 under Matt Rhule when winning the turnover margin.

Colandrea Offensive Rate

This number is on the rise thanks to back-to-back weeks leading the team in rushing. Saturday, Nebraska’s QB was responsible for 346 of Nebraska’s 447 yards, a season-high 77.4%.

Season total: Colandrea 1391 total yards; Nebraska 2378 total yards = 58.5% Colandrea offensive rate.

Point Spread Differential

Last week, the Huskers were revealed to be top ten in the nation in point spread differential. That is unlikely to change after NU covered the closing -15.5 line by 9.5 points, bringing their season total to 44.5 or 8.9 points per game. To give this more perspective, the top Nebraska full-season mark of the last 30 seasons belongs to the 1997 National Champions, who averaged a point spread cover of 4.86 points per game.

Kwazi Gilmer – A career-high tying 10 catches for a career-high 147 yards. Earlier in the week, Dana Holgorsen described his quarterback and transfer receiver as “playing recess” after practice with their regular one-on-one sessions. It has paid off very well. While there is nothing wrong with having a favorite target, I will be interested to see if teams like Indiana will slide coverage over to force Colandrea away from Gilmer.

Anthony Colandrea – The rushing yards notwithstanding, perhaps the best part of Colandrea’s day was after he threw his first half interception. Holgorsen called two quick passes to start the next drive. Then, after the previously mentioned sack-turned-personal foul, he completed two more balls, including a 29-yarder to Gilmer and Colandrea never seemed phased by the mistake. You must have a short memory if you want to have success as a Power 4 quarterback. For a guy with a history of turnovers, I felt like Colandrea responded well to the adversity.

Archie Wilson – A week after he was questioned about “only getting 40-yard punts,” Wilson responded with a 53-yarder on his first kick of the game. While the average of 43.6 isn’t eye-popping, none of his punts were returnable and twice he stuck the Terrapins inside their own 20-yard line.

Depending on the results of Sunday’s AP College Football poll, we could have a ranked-on-ranked matchup of undefeated teams next Saturday. Should Nebraska not be ranked, it would be the first 5-0 Husker team not to be rated by the Associated Press in the 20-or-25 team edition of the poll. The 1962 Huskers were 6-0 and unranked but that was when the AP only ranked 10 teams. Bob Devaney’s first Husker team did receive votes that would have placed them in the top 20 if it had existed.

But no matter if the ’26 Huskers are ranked or not, I believe next Saturday is the first time in 25 years Nebraska has had a game of this magnitude happen in Lincoln. As the graphic below depicts, there have been 18 games since 2001 where the Huskers played a ranked-on-ranked game or featured both teams 5-0 or better. But only four of them were at home and none since 2011’s game between the #13 Huskers and #9 Michigan State.

So why is this week’s Indiana game “once in a generation?” Well, consider the opportunity that lay before the Huskers. They haven’t played in a ranked-on-ranked game since 2016. That’s ten long years for a program with this kind of history. But recall what the atmosphere around the Huskers was in 2016. Mike Riley felt like a substitute teacher to a lot of folks. Never a long-term play, never truly accepted by a healthy percentage of the fan base. That entire season was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t feel like the program was on the verge of a breakthrough, despite the 7-0 record. Then the Ohio State game happened a week later, and that season’s (and maybe even Riley’s) fate was sealed.

This Saturday, on the other hand, is an opportunity to face the defending national champions, a program on a 21-game win streak, very similar to a famous October day in 2001. Yes, Nebraska football was in a very different place nationally in 2001 than it is in the present day. But a win over Indiana would represent the kind of breakout moment an entire generation of Husker fans who only know Nebraska glories through stories have been dreaming of.

I’m not going to say the Huskers must win or will win; I just see an opportunity that has come along all too infrequently for Gen Z. Let’s see if Rhule’s team can rise to the occasion.