One of my roommates in college, from Nebraska, had a number of extended family members who were part of the then legendary Nebraska walkon program in the 60's, 70's, 80's. He lives and breathers Husker football. He is a hard core pessimist re Nebraska football this year for following reasons.

#1: Nebraska of 2015 is nowhere as good as their history. Their last conference championship was 1999. May have been discussed here before, but that is staggering. Nebraska hasn't won a conference championship in 16 years? Wow.

#2: Nebraska used to have a systemic advantage; they set the standard in the 70's and 80's with a monster strength and conditioning program; back then, they had size and power on the O line that nobody else had. Since then, everybody else has caught up; every college program has a year round strength and conditioning program. Nebraska never had much of an athletic advantage, and now their strength and size advantage just is not what it used to be.

#3: Mike Riley is not as good a fit for Nebraska as Bo Pelini. Pelini had serious shortcomings, but he took the talent he had, and maximized it. His defenses were always nasty and tough, and could keep the team in games. He never won the big games that Nebraska craved, but he kept them in almost every game. Still astonishing that a guy with his record, 67-27, got fired. Most losses in a season was 9-4 (three times) and most wins was in a season was 10-4 (three times)

#4: Mike Riley is not as good of a coach as he used to be; at 62, he is way old for a head coach making a move to a new school; he's lost something off the fastball. Ten years ago, you could make the case he was the best coach in the PAC-10; Oregon State was the absolute bottom of the barrel when it came to resources, fan base, recruiting base, but he still cranked out a lot of wins against more talented teams. 2006, 2007, 2008, Oregon State had very good years. In the last five years, he has dropped off quite a bit; three losing seasons in that stretch.

Bottom line, no blue koolaid here, I think BYU is the better team. I think BYU beats a Nebraska team that has lost its identity and doesn't have the right personnel to run Mike Riley's offense.