Huskers, Matt Rhule garner national attention in preseason AP Top 25 poll

Nebraska football is less than three weeks away from the 2024 season opener. Following Monday’s morning session, Matt Rhule and the Huskers have just five practices remaining on the fall camp schedule before Game Week begins ahead of the August 31 opener against UTEP.

That puts us at 19 days left until we get to watch how QB Dylan Raiola, an offense with an influx of exciting receivers and the return of a stalwart defense led by Tony White all perform when the lights flick on.

According to several voters in the preseason AP Top 25 poll, the Huskers are expected to perform well – better than they did in Year 1 of the Rhule Era, that is.

The preseason AP Top 25 poll was released on Monday morning, and one-third of the Big Ten’s new 18-team conference has landed in that preseason upper echelon.

Led by Ohio State (No. 2) and Oregon (No. 3), the Big Ten has four teams in the Top 10 (No. 8 Penn State, No. 9 Michigan) and six total teams in the Top 25 (No. 23 USC, No. 25 Iowa).

The Huskers, meanwhile, received 16 votes in the national preseason poll while Wisconsin rounded out the league with 15 votes as the only other Big Ten team to garner recognition in the “others receiving votes” category.

>> DEBATE the Huskers’ spot in the preseason AP Top 25 on our INSIDER’S BOARD

Nebraska’s preseason collection of 16 votes is the program’s first inclusion in an AP Top 25 poll since prior to the 2022 season, Scott Frost’s last one in charge of the program before getting fired after three games.

That year, the Huskers earned just one vote in the preseason AP Top 25 before falling to Northwestern in Ireland to open the season.

Rhule and Co. will, of course, be hoping things start off much differently in 2024 when they square off against UTEP on August 31 at Memorial Stadium (2:30 p.m. CT on FOX).

The Huskers will be seeking their first season-opening win since 2019 when they held off a comeback bid from South Alabama in Week 1 to win, 35-21. They have opened the season with a Big Ten matchup every year since, falling to Ohio State in 2020, Illinois in 2021, Northwestern in 2022 and Minnesota in 2023.

Their win over South Alabama was followed the next week by an overtime loss at Colorado. The Huskers, ranked No. 24 to begin the year, dropped one spot in the poll after beating South Alabama and were dropped from their No. 25 ranking after the loss to the Buffs. They have not returned to the AP Top 25 since, but wins over UTEP and Colorado to begin the 2024 campaign might very well do the trick.

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