Nebraska can save its season with win vs. Iowa to get bowl eligible

It won’t be easy, but the Nebraska Cornhuskers have a shot at saving their season by upsetting the Iowa Hawkeyes at home to achieve bowl eligibility in 2019.

The sophomore season of the Scott Frost era in Lincoln is coming to an end. When the Nebraska Cornhuskers hired their former star quarterback to be their next head coach, everybody thought that Frost would be the guy who would take this downtrodden football program back to blue-blood status. However, Frost has won just nine games over almost two years since taking over the job.

Frost won more games in one season with the AAC’s UCF Knights during the 2017 NCAA season, as they went undefeated and beat the Auburn Tigers in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl as the Group of 5 champion. Though winning in Orlando wasn’t easy, given what he inherited from George O’Leary, it has been even harder for Frost to win at his alma mater than he could have even imagined.

Nebraska enters play on Friday at an uninspiring 5-6 (3-5) on the season. It’s a disappointing second year in Lincoln for Frost, to say the least, but the Cornhuskers still have something to play for. If they were to upset the ranked Iowa Hawkeyes on Friday afternoon at home, Nebraska will not only get a signature victory under Frost but will somehow achieve bowl eligibility this year.

Sure, getting to 6-6 (4-5) is nothing to write home about if you’re a college football blue-blood, but this could be the key to turn this Nebraska football program around once and for all. The Cornhuskers are not expected to beat Kirk Ferentz’s Hawkeyes, who play great defense and win with a ball-control approach offensively, but if they do, this will shift the narrative for Nebraska.

The reason a win over Iowa is so huge for Nebraska is it will give Frost’s team great momentum to head into bowl practices. Yes, Nebraska having bowl game practices are the most important thing here. By having those extra practices, that means Frost’s team will have opportunities to get better, as opposed to watching holiday bowl season from couches back in Lincoln.

Nebraska would have 15 or so extra practices to improve across the board before the Cornhuskers play in some meaningless bowl against another underperforming Power 5 team or an overperforming Group of 5 team. But this win over Iowa could be a total tone-setter for the Nebraska program heading into 2020. If Frost can get his team to buy into beating Iowa, lookout.

In truth, Nebraska may never be what it once was when Frost was playing for the legendary Tom Osborne in the mid-1990s. The college football landscape has changed so much. Every team can recruit nationally now, as that’s no longer and advantage for a rural football school like Nebraska. But can Nebraska contend for Big Ten titles under Frost? Well, that’s the reason he was hired.

Given the way that Iowa plays, this game between the Hawkeyes and the Cornhuskers will be low-scoring. If Nebraska can win the turnover battle and the home crowd into it, then Nebraska has a legitimate shot of pulling off an upset. It might only be one extra win on the résumé for Nebraska, but this win at home over Iowa could mean absolutely for this rebuilding college football program.

For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.