Nebraska is the favorite for the third time this season as the Huskers opened as a 7.5-point favorite over Troy. The Trojans are visiting Lincoln for the first time since 2006, a 56-0 win for Nebraska.
Saturday's game, scheduled for an 11 a.m. kickoff and televised by the Big Ten Network, will be Troy's fifth visit to Lincoln all-time. The Huskers hold a 4-0 edge in the series.
Nebraska (0-1) is coming off a 33-28 loss to Colorado as a 3-point favorite last week. The Huskers were also a 26-point favorite over Akron in the scheduled season opener. That game was canceled due to weather.
Troy (1-1) bounced back from a season-opening loss with a 59-7 win over Florida A&M as a 34-point favorite on Saturday. The Trojans dropped their home- and season-opener to Boise State 56-20 in Week 1. The Broncos closed as an 8-point favorite in that game.
Including the canceled Akron game, this is the first time Nebraska has been favored in three consecutive games since the Northern Illinois-Rutgers-at Illinois stretch near the start of the season in 2017. The Huskers were underdogs in seven straight games to close last season according to The Gold Sheet's historic logs.
Nebraska will hope to bounce back from a tough loss in Scott Frost's first game as the Huskers' head coach.
"I told the team I’m proud of them," Frost said following Saturday's loss. "I’m broken hearted for them, but I’m proud of them. Looking out on that field we had an offense, the only time we got stopped on offense was when we made mistakes and stopped ourselves. Defense at times looked like the Blackshirts . . . We had their quarterback on his back, we stopped the run all day.
"When you’re trying to go from an average team to a great team, you don’t beat yourself and spotting them 14 points is a good way to get beat, not getting any fourth-and-shorts is a good way to get beat. Giving up third-and-19s and third-and-15s is a good way to get beat. Getting holding calls while you’re trying to run out the clock is a good way to get beat. Getting penalties on third-and-25 when they’re trying to score the last, winning score is a good way to get beat. We can’t beat ourselves. We’ve got to learn those lessons. We’ve tried preaching them to them a lot. If this team didn’t beat itself today, we would have won that game."
Troy won a share of the Sun Belt Conference title last year while going 10-2 in the regular season. Head Coach Neal Brown took over the Trojans in 2015 and is 26-14 as Troy's coach.
Brown, who played at Kentucky and Massachusetts, spent time at both schools as a young coach and started to rise up the coaching ranks quickly in 2008. He was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Troy from 2008 to 2009, Texas Tech from 2010 to 2012 and Kentucky from 2013 to 2014. Brown was named the Sun Belt Coach of the Year in 2017.
