Longtime ESPN College Football analyst Kirk Herbstreit held his annual preseason prediction show on ESPN earlier this week and made a bold prediction regarding the Big Ten and who will win the West Division in 2022. Herbstreit believes the Nebraska Cornhuskers will make it out of the West this year. It’s a bold take for a team that was 3-9 last year, but as you’ll read below, Herbstreit believes the previous season is a big part of the reason why they’ll be making a postseason championship appearance.
Should Nebraska win the west, it would be the first time the Huskers had played in the postseason since the 2012 season when they made it to Indianapolis as a member of the Legends Division. Nebraska would lose that game to Wisconsin by 70-31. That was a period in which Nebraska made a conference championship game five out of seven seasons (2006-2012). However, the Huskers would go 0-5 during that stretch.