Kirk Herbstreit on Nebraska: 'Internally, I think there's a lot of belief in the direction they're going'

Speaking on his ESPN podcast on Monday, Kirk Herbstreit touched on a variety of topics in the Big Ten West.

Talking about the Nebraska Cornhuskers, who went 4-8 a year ago, Herbstreit sees plenty of reasons for optimism.

“Internally, I think there’s a ton of belief in the direction they’re going.

“They’ve got a great quarterback who is only going to get better. He’s got some skill around him. (Redshirt junior) JD Spielman is one of the better receivers in the Big Ten. He’ll have a monster year. I just don’t know if they’re there defensively for the week-in, week-out grind that it takes to avoid a hiccup or two.”

The 2018 Cornhuskers allowed 31.2 points per game, 88th in the nation. This will have to improve in 2019 for the program to step up and challenge for the Big Ten West title.

Thanks to some successful young hires, the B1G West has become much more competitive over the last couple of years, as Herbstreit notes.

“This Big Ten West, by the way, used to just be Wisconsin and everybody else.

“Man, these last couple of years, think about the hires that this division has made with P.J. Fleck now at Minnesota and they’re starting to show some life. We just talked about Scott Frost. Pat Fitzgerald has been there forever and does an amazing job with that brand. Jeff Brohm now in West Lafayette at Purdue…Top to bottom, that is a lot of young energy and great recruiting and fundamentals and doing it the right way.”

Fitzgerald’s Northwestern Wildcats won the B1G West in 2018 with a 9-5 (8-1) record. They will begin 2019 with quite the test as Northwestern travels to Stanford to face the No. 25 Cardinal on Saturday at 4:00PM ET.

As for Nebraska, the Cornhuskers host South Alabama on Saturday at 12:00PM ET.