College football writers think more of Nebraska than of Wisconsin entering 2024 season

Thoughts on this comparison?

The 2024 preseason AP Poll Top 25 was released on Monday. The Wisconsin Badgers are on the outside looking in, down in the receiving votes category.

It will be the first time Wisconsin enters the season unranked since 2016 and the third time since 2007.

Related: Ranking all 18 Big Ten football teams in championship tiers entering 2024 season

Five of the Badgers’ 2024 opponents are ranked entering the year. Oregon is at No. 3 overall, Alabama is No. 5, Penn State is No. 8, USC is No. 23 and Iowa is No. 25.

One other opponent is in the receiving votes category: the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Nebraska’s vote total of 16 edges Wisconsin’s (15 votes) by one. Those votes come from ballots that had the teams ranked, with 25 points awarded for a first-place vote, 24 for a second-place vote and so on.

Digging deeper, the AP voters collectively think more of Nebraska entering 2024 than they do Wisconsin. That is a strong statement after the Cornhuskers’ 5-7 debut season under Matt Rhule in 2023.

Whether justified or not, the slotting creates an interesting comparison between the two programs that should be interesting to watch as the season unfolds.

Both are in the midst of transition under new leadership — Nebraska with Rhule and Wisconsin with Luke Fickell. Nebraska has not defeated Wisconsin since 2012, including the Badgers’ 24-17 overtime win in 2023. But the context surrounding each program has changed significantly since Rhule and Fickell were hired entering the 2023 season.

More than anything, Rhule appears to have Nebraska ready to return to prominence after years of high expectations and disappointing results. Five-star true freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola will have a lot to say about whether that happens in 2024.

Any pair of coaches hired during the same offseason will inevitably be compared. That is especially the case with two programs that play an annual rivalry game, and are each battling for the same position in the conference’s standing.

The AP voters are projecting the power to begin to shift during the 2024 season.

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