No. 23 Nebraska rolls past Northern Iowa, improves to 3-0

LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) - Freshman QB Dylan Raiola turned in the best performance of his young college career as No. 23 Nebraska (3-0) remained undefeated Saturday with a 34-3 rout of Northern Iowa (2-1).

Raiola completed 17 of his 23 pass attempts for 247 yards and 2 TD — all season-highs. The stat line doesn’t tell the whole story, though, as Raiola dazzled a jam packed Memorial Stadium with a few jaw-dropping throws and some impressive improvisation.

It looked as if UNI would be able to run the ball at will to start the game, as the Panthers put together a 16-play, 62 yard field goal drive that ate up 10 minutes of clock after the Huskers had scored their first touchdown.

That was all the points UNI could muster, though, as the Blackshirts flexed their muscles as the superior unit throughout the rest of the contest.

Nebraska’s defense has allowed just 20 total points in three games so far this season, and the dominance continued Saturday, holding the Panthers to just 301 yards of offense — nearly one-third of which came on the final possession with mostly backups on the field for the Huskers.

Now, Nebraska heads into Big Ten Conference action unscathed — a perfect 3-0 for the first time since 2016.

The Huskers will welcome fellow-unbeaten Illinois (3-0) to Lincoln next Friday at 6:30 p.m. in what is likely to be a top-25 matchup if the unbeaten Illini can break into the rankings. Friday’s game will also be the 400th consecutive sellout at Memorial Stadium.

GAME RECAP

PREGAME COVERAGE

The Huskers are riding high after a 28-10 clobbering of Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes in prime time last Saturday night in a game that drew 6.3 million viewers across the country — the most of any Week 2 game aside from the top-10 clash between Texas and Michigan.

The result of the Colorado game quickly pushed Nebraska to the forefront of the college football conversation, signaling a return to national prominence. An appearance at No. 23 in the AP Top 25 confirmed those signals. With eyeballs come expectations, though, and now the pressure is turned up for the Huskers to produce a high-quality follow-up act this weekend.

“You come here to have high expectations,” Matt Rhule said in a press conference Monday. “You come here to play in big games. You come here to play in front of that crowd. Those are the reasons you come here, so we expect to be ranked. Whatever it is, 23rd, 24th, that’s not where we want to end up. So[we’ll try] to go 1-0 every week and see what happens.”

Standing in their way will be an unbeaten UNI team that boasts wins over fellow FCS opponents Valpraiso and St. Thomas Minnesota.

On paper, the Panthers don’t hold a candle to the prolific Colorado offense that Nebraska shutdown last week, but they do have one of the best running backs in all of college football: Tye Edwards. Edwards is a 6-foot-4, 230-pound wrecking ball who has made his presence known in the first two games of his senior season, racking up 315 yards on just 30 carries.

“I have a lot of respect for what they’ve done over there [at Northern Iowa],” said Rhule. “I know playing Northern Iowa, they know how to win. They expect to win. They’ve come to places like this before... It’s a scary game, in that regard, because Northern Iowa knows how to win.”

GAME INFO

• WHEN: 6:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 14
• WHERE: Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb.
• WATCH: Big Ten Network
• LISTEN: Huskers Radio Network
• VEGAS ODDS: Northern Iowa +32.5, O/U 47.5

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