Nebraska football defeated Houston Christian 59-7 on Saturday afternoon. The Huskers improved to 3-0 with the win, marking the second straight year Nebraska has started 3-0. The Huskers’ 59 points against HCU and 68 points against Akron last week are the first time Nebraska has scored 50 points in back-to-back games since the final two games of the 2007 season.
The Huskers outgained the Huskies 554 yards to 160 yards. Quarterback Dylan Raiola completed 15-of-21 passes for 222 yards and two touchdowns. He increased his career passing yard total to 3,648 yards, which moved him ahead of Tommie Frazier (3,521 yards) into ninth place all-time at Nebraska.
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Nebraska wore an all-red uniform combination for Saturday’s game with traditional home jerseys and traditional road pants. The last time this all-red combination was worn was a 1986 loss to the Oklahoma Sooners.
Head Coach Matt Rhule met with the media following the victory and discussed the current state of his team as it enters Big Ten play. Rhule is 15-13 at Nebraska and has gone 3-6 in conference play in each of his first two seasons.
“We’re going to continue to have to get better. Some things that look like they’re good right now aren’t going to be as good versus a different opponent. You just have to keep reacting as the year goes on. I think we’re a significantly better team than we have been, but the road gets a lot harder. If we stay where we are right now, we won’t win a lot of games moving forward. We have to improve.”
Kwinten Ives led the ground game with 85 yards off 12 carries with a touchdown. Dane Key led all receivers with four catches for 104 yards and a touchdown. Key now has 2,060 career receiving yards and is one of only seven active FBS players with over 2,000 career receiving yards. Rhule believes that his team still has a long way to go before the end of the season.
“I kept bringing it back to this is the standard that we have. I thought a lot of guys did a lot of really good things. We have a long way to go, but to be 3-0 and have played a Power 4 team, and dominated two teams we were supposed to dominate, that’s all I can ask of the guys.”
The last time Nebraska started a season 4-0 was in 2016, when the Huskers began the year 7-0 and were ranked as high as No. 8 in the polls before being blown out by Ohio State in Columbus. Nebraska (3-0) will return to action Saturday, Sept. 20, at 2:30 p.m. CT when the Huskers welcome the Michigan Wolverines (2-1) to Memorial Stadium. The game is expected to be the 406th consecutive home sellout and can be seen on CBS.
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Houston Christian head coach Jason Bachtel met with the media following the loss and believes that Nebraska should be a ranked team and that the polls will reflect that in the near future. Rhule knows the Big Ten is a challenging league and that things will only get more difficult as the season progresses.
“Dylan (Raiola) was talking about doing his Sunday workout today. I asked the guys to show up and be ready to go tomorrow, and it’s not about any one opponent. I mean, now we are in Big Ten play, we will be playing nine conference games and we are a proud member of the Big Ten. It is a challenging conference and we have a tough schedule and we play a lot of great teams. We have to show up every week. We have to improve every week and improve before we even get to the game. I think the guys will be ready to go tomorrow.”
This game will be the 14th meeting between the Huskers and Wolverines. Michigan holds an all-time series lead of 8-4-1. The two teams last met in 2023 when the Wolverines blew out the Huskers 45-7.
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This article originally appeared on Cornhuskers Wire: Nebraska coach Matt Rhule believes Huskers are ready for Big Ten play
