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“This will be the last time we ever celebrate six wins,� Rhule said.

Nebraska ended up celebrating its seventh win less than a month later, but it’s the team’s offseason work that has backed up Rhule’s comments. The head coach dreams big — he’s spoken about wanting the Huskers to compete with the best in the Big Ten — and so do his players.

All the comings, goings and changes of the last month have been toward that goal, and the Huskers aren’t finished just yet. Let’s drop into coverage:

1. NU’s aggressive timeline

Dylan Raiola’s first nine games at the collegiate level were good. There were flashes of the quarterback Nebraska hopes Raiola will become, and there were moments where he looked the part of a true freshman going up against experienced Big Ten defenses.

It was good, not great — and Rhule knew his quarterback needed some help around him. Enter some guys named Dana Holgorsen, Daikiel Shorts, Dane Key, Elijah Pritchett and many others.

Rhule’s in-season decision to bring in Holgorsen as the program’s offensive coordinator was about as aggressive as it gets. It was a decision that was made in part to get Nebraska to a bowl game, and in part to bring along Raiola’s development.

The four-game stretch under Holgorsen won’t send Raiola to new levels alone, but it did provide an important building block. One that showed that Raiola can operate the offense at a high level, and one that could be put into place long before the offseason began around the country.

Four games might not seem like much, but it’s a big chunk of the time Nebraska has to develop its quarterback.

Remember this with Raiola — if all goes to plan, he'll want to leave for the NFL after his junior season.

That's your timeline — two years to build a Big Ten contender or College Playoff team around Raiola — and with ample financial reserves backing it, Nebraska is going after that goal.

Especially at the premier positions in college football, the Huskers have elevated their roster. Nebraska has the five-star quarterback in Raiola, and it now has a five-star defensive lineman in Williams Nwaneri.

The Huskers landed a former five-star offensive tackle in Elijah Pritchett and have completely transformed their wide receiver room with a series of transfer additions. They brought in a new coach at the spot in Shorts, a former player under Holgorsen who understands the position well.

NU has added further talent at positions of need like cornerback, linebacker and on special teams. Rhule even moved on from his longtime special teams coordinator, Ed Foley, because he wasn’t getting the job done — and because Rhule can’t afford to wait around and let another year of Raiola’s development go to waste.

Nothing’s guaranteed in football, but Rhule has done an excellent job of building around Raiola and Nebraska’s existing core with a series of aggressive decisions.

2. Transfer thoughts

Nebraska has landed several impact transfers since the New Year, but none stands bigger than the addition of Pritchett to the team’s offensive line. Offensive tackles who are experienced and athletic are hot commodities in the transfer portal, and Nebraska went into the offseason knowing it’d need to land at least one.

NU may have missed out on Isaiah World and Fa’alili Fa’amoe, but it hit big with Pritchett. Whether at right tackle, where he lined up for Alabama in 2024, or at the all-important spot of left tackle, Pritchett’s powerful 6-foot-6, 310-pound frame combines with athleticism to make him an adept blocker.

Improvements in pass protection may be needed, but Nebraska just landed a player who was once the nation’s top-ranked offensive line recruit and started 12 games for Alabama last season. Any program in the country would be happy to add a player like that.

Nebraska has also been active in turning over a defensive backs room which will lose many of its veteran starters from this fall. Playmaking cornerback Jamir Conn, who joins the Huskers from the FCS level, and upside defensive back Marquis Groves-Killebrew are the latest secondary additions.

More important, though, is the pickup of linebacker Marques Watson-Trent. For two seasons now, Nebraska has gotten excellent interior linebacker play from Luke Reimer in 2023, then John Bullock in 2024.

Experienced, knowledgeable linebackers with a nose for the football tend to excel in NU’s defensive setup — and the Huskers have landed another in Watson-Trent.

3. Special teams change

Over the last 12 years of Rhule’s coaching career, 10 of them have been spent with Ed Foley by his side.

The two coaches are clearly aligned about how they want a special teams unit to look, but Foley simply couldn’t put that vision into action with the Huskers.

The statistics tell the entire story even without having watched the many gaffes and near-misses from Nebraska on special teams this fall.

The Huskers, which ranked No. 95 nationally in special teams efficiency a year ago, fell to No. 111 this season.

Nebraska converted 61.1% of its field goal tries, one of just 20 teams nationally with a success rate of less than 65%. Bad snaps were the culprit on many of those misses.

Nebraska, which almost never returned punts in 2023, did more of that in 2024 — but its 4.9 yards per return ranked No. 111 in the country. Things were slightly better on kickoff returns, where NU ranked 100th with an average of 18.6 yards per return.

Thanks to the work of senior Brian Buschini, Nebraska did raise its average from 40.7 yards per punt in 2023 to 44.7 yards in 2024. Those kicks netted just 34.8 yards of field position, though, in part due to poor coverage.

And when defending the punt, Nebraska allowed four returns of 20 or more yards, one of only 11 teams nationally to do so. It also allowed five kick returns of 20-plus yards, again ranking in the bottom top 20 nationally.

Those numbers will be concerning to whoever becomes Nebraska’s next special teams coordinator.

4. Donovan Raiola’s offensive line

The lone assistant coach retained by Rhule from the previous coaching staff, Donovan Raiola’s three years with the program have been marked by steady improvement up front.

Remember the struggles of Bryce Benhart as a pass protector early in his Nebraska career? Raiola shaped the right tackle into a consistent performer who displayed major growth in that area.

Raiola got redshirt freshman Gunnar Gottula ready to go at left tackle, and he’s built up a pair of tough interior linemen in Justin Evans and Henry Lutovsky over the last two seasons.

The way the Nebraska offensive line plays, whether it’s the first, second or third-team unit, is as a physical group that gets low and moves people at the point of attack. Pass protection still poses a challenge at times, but the team’s line play is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was three years ago.

With additional talent joining the Huskers up front, look for Raiola to continue building up that unit.

5. Quarterback money

In November 2023, Rhule made national headlines when he said that “a good QB in the portal costs $1 million, $1.5, $2 million.�

With revenue-sharing agreements coming into place for next season, those numbers have been blown out of the water in recent months.

Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, who’s likely to either transfer or move on to the NFL with Arch Manning ready to take over for the Longhorns, refused to confirm or deny a national report that he’d been offered $6 million to transfer at the end of the season.

Just this week, Georgia's Carson Beck decided to forgo a chance at the 2025 NFL Draft to enter the transfer portal instead. Beck is headed to Miami (Florida), with CBS Sports having reported that a $4 million NIL package was offered to the transfer quarterback.

A season-ending injury might’ve already pushed Beck to return rather than turn pro, but the money at stake is what made the decision easy. Outside of first-round NFL draft picks, that level of compensation simply isn’t attainable for NFL rookies — but it is now for the nation’s best college football players.