Advantageous Schedule Means Lots Of Ws For Nebraska

The schedule makers have been kind to Nebraska in 2013.

The Cornhuskers (10-4 overall, 7-1 in the Big Ten, winners of the Legends Division last season) have the kind of schedule teams dream of.

One look at their 2013 slate and it’s hard to imagine anything but a double-digit win total for Nebraska.

It will name its score in three of its four nonconference games as Wyoming (4-8 last season), Southern Miss (winless in ’12) and FCS member South Dakota State come to Lincoln.

The biggest game Nebraska will play before November is against UCLA. The Bruins will be ranked in the preseason top 25 polls after going 9-5 last season and beating the Cornhuskers in early September in Pasadena, 36-30.

The UCLA game is one of seven that Nebraska plays in Memorial Stadium in 2013. In fact, the Huskers don’t leave the state until Oct. 12 and don’t face Ohio State and Wisconsin, the two best teams in the Leaders Division.

Once Big Ten play starts, expect the Huskers to cruise through October, registering blowouts in their first three games against the likes of Illinois, Purdue and Minnesota.

November gets much tougher as Northwestern kicks off the month by visiting Lincoln. That game will be followed by one of the biggest of the Big Ten season as Bo Pelini’s team will travel to the Big House to meet Brady Hoke’s Michigan Wolverines. You can bet on the Nebraska-Michigan game deciding the conference’s Legends Division winner, who will get the bid to play in the Big Ten Championship Game in December in Indianapolis.

For argument’s sake, lets say Nebraska is 8-1 on the year leaving Ann Arbor.

The Huskers could win out after that with home clashes with Michigan State and Iowa with a trip to Penn State sandwiched in-between.

At 11-1, Nebraska won’t get an invite to the BCS National Championship Game or even the Rose Bowl, but a BCS bowl game bid will be in the cards.

Will that silence the fraction of Husker Nation critical of the job Pelini has done in Lincoln? Probably not.

Doug Griffiths is a member of the Football Writers Association of America and the US Basketball Writers Association. Doug is a columnist/writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ISLgriffiths and Facebook.