2025 B1G Team Talent Preview: Nebraska

Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

Welcome to the 14th part in our series looking at the rosters of every Big Ten team as we head ever closer to opening day.

The order is organized by my team talent rankings. For more information on how those numbers came about, check out the intro for the Maryland post. And while you’re there, go ahead and read the whole thing then come back. We’ll wait for you.

Past Teams

Tier 5— 18. Maryland Terrapins, 17. Purdue Boilermakers

Tier 4— 16. Iowa Hawkeyes, 15. Minnesota Golden Gophers, 14. Northwestern

Wildcats

Tier 3— 13. UCLA Bruins, 12. Illinois Fighting Ilini, 11. Washington Huskies, 10. Rutgers Scarlet Knights, 9. Indiana Hoosiers, 8. Michigan State Spartans, 7. Wisconsin Badgers

Tier 2 — 6. USC Trojans

(Names in bold are projected starters by Phil Steele. Otherwise, names are listed in order of scoring in the talent ranking system)

Average 247 Composite Rating of Phil Steele Starter: 0.8836 (7th)

Average # of Snaps Played by Phil Steele Starter: 850 (8th)

Average Career PFF grade of Phil Steele Starter: 65.7 (13th)

TOTAL OFFENSE- 1,221 (3rd)

Quarterback- 179 (5th)

Starter- Dylan Raiola (93)

Reserves- TJ Lateef (53), Tanner Terch (38), Marcos Davila (35)

Raiola received a ton of hype going into last season as the #1 overall QB in the 2024 recruiting class but at the time I noted that there weren’t many recent examples of true freshman QBs putting up massive numbers as the day one starter. That came to pass as he threw for 6.8 YPA with 13 TDs and 11 INTs. Raiola wasn’t the worst QB in the B1G but he was in the bottom half.

This year I went through the 2021-23 recruiting classes to see how QBs rated a 0.98 or better performed in their second season in college (17 total). The high end of the sample was Caleb Williams who transferred to USC and then won the Heisman. Only five other QBs started the whole year and they averaged 2,597 pass yards on 7.3 YPA, 20 TDs, and 5 INTs. Those numbers would represent an improvement for Raiola (except the raw pass yards) and a seem a reasonable benchmark.*

It’s clear that Nebraska is 100% committed to Raiola for at least another year. The next 3 on the depth chart are either true or redshirt freshmen and none of them have played a college snap yet.

*The full breakdown of the 17: 1 Heisman winner, 5 solid to good starters, 3 part-time starters (Avg: 1,113 pass yds, 8.2 YPA, 10 TD, 2 INT), 4 backups (Avg: 178 pass yds, 8.4 YPA, 1 TD, 1 INT), 4 hardly played.

Running Back- 104 (15th)

Starter- Emmett Johnson (69)

Reserves- Jamarion Parker (49), Conor Booth (42), Kwinten Ives (21)

Last year saw a carry share between Emmett Johnson and Oregon transfer Dante Dowdell. Dowdell got more playing time and had a 12 to 1 TD advantage but Johnson was more effective on a per carry basis and broke more tackles. Dowdell opted to transfer to Kentucky so Johnson remains and is the unquestioned starter as no other RB on the roster has more than 16 total offensive snaps to their name. Projected backups Parker and Booth are both true freshmen. If Johnson were to go down with an injury then we’re in complete unknown territory.

Wide Receiver- 332 (4th)

Starters- Dane Key (91), Jacory Barney Jr. (83), Nyziah Hunter (80)

Reserves- Cortez Mills (55), Isaiah Mozee (50), Jeremiah Jones (49), Jackson Carpenter (38)

Nebraska went to the portal for a pair of starters last year and now both of them are gone after a single season. Slot receiver Jacory Barney was 3rd in yards but led the team in catches as a four-star true freshman and now comes back. He is joined by another pair of prominent portal adds. Dane Key was my #1 ranked WR transfer after he had 715 yards last year for Kentucky and has had 500+ in each of his 3 seasons in college. Nyziah Hunter had a really promising freshman year (578 yds, 5 TDs) for California and moves in to complete a really good starting troika.

The next four on the depth chart are all true freshmen and three of them are four-star recruits. When combined with the starters, that means my projected top-6 for Nebraska were all four-star recruits and makes this one of the more talented groups in the conference outside of Columbus or Los Angeles.

Tight End- 105 (5th)

Starter- Carter Nelson (65)

Reserves- Luke Lindenmeyer (56), Janiran Bonner (48), Mac Markway (47)

Nebraska lost standout TE Thomas Fidone to the draft after he was 4th on the team in receiving yards last season. They also lost their #2 TE so third option Luke Lindenmeyer is projected by Phil Steele to get the boost up to the starting job. My system projects Nelson to wind up on top after completing his true freshman season as one of the top tight end recruits in the country last year. He is one of three former four-stars towards the top of the depth chart sandwiched around the former walk-on in Lindenmeyer.

Offensive Line- 501 (2nd)

Starters- RG Rocco Spindler (87), Teddy Prochazka (72), LG Henry Lutovsky (71), Turner Corcoran (69), LT Elijah Pritchett (68)

Reserves- Gunnar Gottula (65), C Justin Evans-Jenkins (64), Grant Brix (48), Juju Marks (47), Shawn Hammerbeck (44)...RT Tyler Knaak (19)

(A note that my listed starters here are the 5 highest scorers even if some of them play the same position. If the backup right tackle has a higher rating than the starting left guard, the LG gets bumped to reserves above.)

Nebraska’s OL has been ravaged by injuries the last several years but the hope is that spreading out the playing time means that they’ll finally have enviable depth even if they have another injury or two. Seven different linemen have started at least 9 games at the power conference level so this is a group with a ton of collective experience. All 7 of those linemen have a score of at least a 64 and Nebraska is the only team that can say they have that level of depth.

The question will be how many of them are actually good rather than experienced? If there’s a hole, it’s likely to come at left tackle where the projected starter is Alabama transfer Elijah Pritchett who really struggled last season despite his high four-star pedigree. His backup is Tucker Corcoran who has 35 career starts but a career PFF grade below 40.0 which is almost impossible. Although it did improve the last couple season after disastrous freshman/sophomore campaigns.

Incoming Notre Dame transfer Rocco Spindler headlines the group after starting 23 games for the Irish and helping take them to a national title game appearance. The one curiosity is Phil Steele projecting former Utah transfer Tyler Knaak to win the RT job. He has just 39 career snaps through 3 seasons of college so it would be an upset to see him prevail over the other options on the roster. No matter what, this group should be in the top half of the conference with a ceiling to be in the top few.

Photo by Brandon Sloter/Image Of Sport/Getty Images

TOTAL DEFENSE- 1,114 (7th)

Defensive Line- 204 (9th)

Starters- Jaylen George (68), Keona Davis Wilhite (62)

Reserves- Malcolm Simpson (52), Kade Pietrzak (49), Riley Van Poppel (48), Tyson Terry (47), Elijah Jeudy (45)

This is another one where my system and Steele completely disagree on who the starters will/should be. That isn’t exactly surprising because this entire DL room combines for exactly 1 power conference start. There’s no such thing as a sure thing here. That doesn’t mean there aren’t options. My projected top dog is Jaylen George who is transferring in from FCS East Tennessee State but he played last year at 260 lb so is more realistically an edge rusher. But I’m going off of Phil Steele’s positional designations and he lists him as an undersized DT.

While both starters are gone from last year’s squad, numbers 3 through 5 on the depth chart are all coming back. Steele is pegging #3 (Jeudy) and #5 (Van Poppel) to get the start. And they’re 2nd and 3rd in career snaps for the group behind George. My system prefers Keona Davis who was Keona Wilhite while committed to UW and then flipped to Nebraska after Kalen DeBoer left. He played 108 snaps last year as a true freshman defensive end. Four-star freshmen Malcolm Simpson and Kade Pietrzak will also contend for playing time.

Edge Rushers- 230 (7th)

Starters- Dasan McCullough (88), Cameron Lenhardt (66)

Reserves- Willis McGahee IV (64), Williams Nwaneri (57), Ashton Murphy (34)

This is just about a full reboot for Nebraska’s edge position. The top 4 leaders from the edge in QB pressures and the top 7 overall are all gone this season. Willis McGahee IV and Cameron Lenhardt were 8th and 9th respectively and should compete for a starting spot. Lenhardt is a year older and has 3x as many total snaps but has a lower PFF grade while he has been on the field.

That duo is likely competing for the 2nd/3rd spot behind Dasan McCullough. The former high four-star recruit has started 12 games over 3 seasons at Indiana/Oklahoma and is hoping he’ll experience his true breakthrough playing at Nebraska. Also in the mix is former five-star recruit Williams Nwaneri who hardly saw the field as a true freshman last year at Missouri and provides another talented option.

Linebackers- 200 (6th)

Starters- Vincent Shavers (76), Marques Watson-Trent (68)

Reserves- Dawson Merritt (55), Christian Jones (54), Javin Wright (53)

Both of Nebraska’s starting linebackers from last season are gone but they return #3 and #4 and that’s who Steele projects to start. Shavers was a true freshman last year and showed a lot of promise in just over 200 snaps while starting 2 games. He looks like a clear breakout candidate. Wright is the opposite as he’ll be in his 7th season of college football having only ever made 3 starts.

The primary competition for a starting job should come from Marques Watson-Trent who transferred in from Georgia Southern and has played 2,500+ career snaps. That’s 4th among any player in the entire conference so he has a ton of experience. Nipping at their heels will be three true freshmen including four-star prospects Dawson Merritt and Christian Jones.

Cornerbacks- 304 (7th)

Starters- Ceyair Wright (88), Andrew Marshall (64), Jaimr Conn (64)

Reserves- Malcolm Hartzog (60), Blye Hill (58), Mario Buford (56), Bryson Webber (47)

Last year Nebraska got a steal late in the cycle when USC transfer Ceyair Wright didn’t commit until June. He ended up 7th in defensive snaps for the Cornhuskers and had 2 INTs plus 6 PBUs. The former high four-star recruit has a good chance to be one of the best corners in the conference this year.

Nebraska’s other two projected starters come from very different paths. Malcolm Hartzog Jr. is the mainstay having started 30 games for Nebraska as a former three-star recruit. Andrew Marshall is an unrated recruit who put up solid PFF grades at FCS Idaho last year despite not getting his hands on a lot of balls (0 INT, 2 PBU). Also in contention for a staring job will be fellow FCS transfer Jamir Conn coming over from Southern Illinois. Like Marshall he has 0 career interceptions.

Safeties- 177 (17th)

Starters- Deshon Singleton (68), Marques Buford (61)

Reserves- Caden VerMaas (41), Justyn Rhett (38), Roger Gradney (34), Kahmir Prescott (29)

It’s a bit of a surprise to see Nebraska this low considering the experience in their starters. Both Singleton and Buford have started 18+ games in their career and played 1,000+ defensive snaps. However, both were three-star recruits out of high school and neither has a career PFF grade that tops 70 so they don’t have nearly the star power of some others. Buford spent last season as Nebraska’s nickel corner but is expected to see more time at the safety spot this year.

There’s almost no experience behind that duo though with no other safeties eclipsing even 50 career defensive snaps. There are five either true or redshirt freshmen among that group and it’s likely that at least one of them will be called upon to play serious snaps and will need to be up for the challenge.

OVERALL TEAM- 2,335 (5th)

Nebraska finally broke the seal last year on their long streak of losing seasons (had been 8 years) but the question now is whether they’re ready to compete for a College Football Playoff berth. It’s not out of the question.

Nebraska has been quietly recruiting at a strong level for several years now. The last 3 years have gone 25th, 18th, and 23rd and that includes bringing in the top-ranked QB in the country in 2024. I went into it in a lot of detail in the QB section above but the odds are that Dylan Raiola is merely a good to very good QB this season rather than the Heisman contender that Nebraska fans dreamed of when he first showed up on campus. That would still be a big improvement for an offense that was 99th in SP+ last year.

If Nebraska doesn’t make a huge leap this year on that side of the ball then something will have gone terribly wrong. They’ve got a 7-deep OL of guys who have had serious playing time at the power conference level. There are 3 WRs on the roster who had 440+ yards as true freshmen at the power conference level. Their running back averaged 5+ yards per carry last season while starting 10 games. The infrastructure is there to put up not just a decent offense but one that has top-25 upside if Raiola plays up to expectations.

The defense seems poised to take a step back after finishing 12th in SP+ last year. Eight of Nebraska’s 12 leaders in defensive snaps from last season are gone. There are a few defensive transfers who can plug some of the holes but Nebraska is largely counting on internal development to make up for the losses. That can work but involves more unknowns for those of us looking in from the outside.

Nebraska should be able to survive some defensive slippage though because of a schedule that puts them squarely in play for a 10-win season. The non-con has a neutral site game against Cincinnati that won’t be a cakewalk but Nebraska will still be favored. Big Ten play starts out hosting Michigan and they travel to Penn State. But Nebraska gets to play the teams ranked 18th, 16th, 15th, 14th, and 13th in my team talent rankings. That includes the team I’m mostly likely to be underrating (Iowa) but they also play the team I’m most likely to be overrating (Michigan State) so that probably cancels out.

Whether this becomes a special season probably comes down to home games against USC and Iowa. Win both and it almost certainly means at least 9 wins overall. I might hedge slightly and predict 8 but Matt Rhule appears to have righted the ship in Lincoln.

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Top-10 Players (with position rank and overall conference rank)

1. QB Dylan Raiola, 93 (4th, 18th)
2. WR Dane Key*, 91 (3rd, 22nd)
3. CB Ceyair Wright, 88 (5th, 35th)
4. ED Dasan McCullough*, 88 (4th, 37th)
5. OL Rocco Spindler*, 87 (3rd, 47th)
6. WR Jacory Barney Jr, 83 (10th, 76th)
7. WR Nyziah Hunter*, 80 (15th, 93rd)
8. LB Vincent Shavers, 76 (9th, 118th)
9. OT Teddy Prochazka, 72 (23rd, 177th)
10. OG Henry Lutovsky, 71 (26th, 191st)

*Incoming transfer

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