Nebraska Football: Way too early look at 2020 schedule

By Leigh Oleszczak | May 28, 2020

LINCOLN, NE - NOVEMBER 10: The Nebraska Cornhuskers take the field against the Illinois Fighting Illini at Memorial Stadium on November 10, 2018 in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Photo by Steven Branscombe/Getty Images) /

Nebraska football is hoping to turn things around in year three of the Scott Frost era. They’ll have a tough schedule to try to do so against. Let’s take a look at the Huskers’ 2020 schedule.

Assuming we get college football this year, it’ll be an uphill battle for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, who have an absolute brutal schedule in 2020. Yes, they get to start the year off with five of their first six games at home in the confines of Memorial Stadium, but those games won’t be coming against tiddlywinks.

Normally Nebraska starts their season off against a non-conference opponent, but this year they’ll welcome in fellow Big Ten West foe Purdue for their home opener. Purdue has had Nebraska’s number since the Huskers joined the Big Ten, so this game won’t be a cakewalk by any means.

After that, the Cornhuskers host three straight non-conference opponents: Central Michigan, South Dakota State, and Cincinnati. That’s tough sledding for Big Red, as all three of those teams had winning seasons in 2020 with Cincinnati finishing the year ranked in the top 25.

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Nebraska’s first road game comes against Northwestern, a team who they’ve been up and down against over the years. This is a good first road game for the Huskers to have because it’s a winnable one for them.

Next, the Cornhuskers return home to host Illinois who finally started to turn the corner last year with Lovie Smith as their head coach. The Fighting Illini fell to Nebraska earlier in the season, but had the game taken place later on, Big Red probably gets their tail kicked by Illinois, who upset Wisconsin in 2019 and made it to a bowl game for the first time since 2014.

Nebraska then gets to face Rutgers on the road in what should hopefully be a win for the Huskers. It’s important that Nebraska has a good record at this point of the season because their opponents get even tougher from here on out. Here are their final five games in 2020:

at Ohio State
Penn State
at Iowa
Wisconsin
Minnesota

That’s a brutal stretch to close out the season and if Nebraska struggles with their early season schedule, they could be in trouble by the time these five games roll around. You might notice that the Cornhuskers aren’t closing their season out against Iowa and that’s a change for the 2020 season, as they’ll play Minnesota on the Friday after Thanksgiving instead of Iowa.

The good news with this stretch is that Nebraska gets three of those five games at home, but has Memorial Stadium really been a home field advantage for the Huskers in recent years? It doesn’t really seem like it.

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Hopefully we get college football in 2020 and hopefully Nebraska is able to turn the tides and get to a bowl game in Scott Frost‘s third year.

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