No overstating importance of Saturday tilt with Wisconsin

The nonconference season is over, which means beginning this week, the rubber meets the road for the Nebraska football team beginning Saturday when the No. 22 ranked Huskers host Wisconsin.

Both clubs are 3-1, each losing to Pac 12 teams. Nebraska lost 36-30 to UCLA while the Badgers lost 10-7 at Oregon State, which defeated UCLA 27-20. Both clubs have three wins over lesser clubs. The Huskers, however, have won more decisively. Nebraska has wins over Southern Mississippi (49-20), Arkansas State (42-13) and Idaho State (73-7). Wisconsin has defeated Northern Iowa (26-21), Utah State (16-14) and UTEP (37-26).

The term “big game” can be an overstatement but for Nebraska the importance of this game simply cannot be overstated. The Huskers have visions and goals of winning their first conference title since 1999. Not beating a scuffling but maybe still decent Badger club at home would be a bad sign.

These two clubs met last season in Madison, Wisc., where the Badgers greeted Nebraska rudely in their Big Ten debut with a 48-17 shellacking on national television. This game will also be on national television with the Huskers looking to return the favor. While it is human nature to think about revenge, the Huskers also have to walk a thin line in not getting preoccupied so much that they lose sight of the task at hand.

Wisconsin is not nearly the team Nebraska played last year and the Huskers have a huge home field edge, so if all goes well, they could come out with a win. While winning this game is only Step #1 in the process of winning the Big Ten crown, a loss would hurt the season badly.

The only way the Huskers are going to re-establish their brand is to look good on some national telecasts against still competition. A big win over Idaho State was fun but it did nothing to re-establish us among the nation's college football elite. Unfortunately, Nebraska has laid a number of eggs on national TV lately. It's time to reverse that trend.

After four games we really don't know what Nebraska has. The Huskers pasted three bad teams and gave up 653 yards to a UCLA team that is probably an 8-4/9-3 type of club. There is no way Nebraska should lose this game simply based on what we've seen from Wisconsin so far. While the Huskers may have question marks you can at least look at them and say "well, there's a pretty good team."

This is the single most important game on Nebraska's schedule. You simply can't lose at home to a Wisconsin team that is nowhere near last year's level and then face going to Columbus, Ohio with a realistic chance of starting conference play at 0-2. No room for error the rest of the season if that were to happen.

The revenge aspect is overblown. It’s for fans and media to dwell on, but rarely has much to do with what actually happens on the field.