It’s bye week, so get your Halloween shopping done.

Nebraska football has plenty of tricks and treats left for you this year. Here are 8 bold predictions for the rest of the season.

Let’s get the boldest out of the way:

Nebraska is going bowling

I’m not sure how. This team is 3-5 and the prospects of finishing 3-1 look highly unlikely. But it’s still possible. Maybe it’s a 2020-style COVID cancellation (knock on wood it’s not), a 5-7 exception, a high “academic progress rate” or a team left Conference USA for the Sun Belt and a bowl is feeling extra petty about its bids. It doesn’t matter how. Get in and you can win, just like the 2015 Foster Farms Bowl. Speaking of the former Redbox Bowl, if those same donors that buy up all of the unsold tickets to keep the sellout streak alive put together a naming rights deal, it could be revived in time. And there’s your bowl. Can’t keep you out if you’re the sponsor.

Sellout streak ends

The Huskers decide to go out gracefully like Cal Ripken Jr. and end it on their own terms. Besides, that streak has more asterisks than the all-time home run list. There was a pandemic. Fans weren’t allowed for a year. It’s okay to admit the stadium wasn’t full a few times in there. Time to focus on more important things, like …

They win a close game

Finally! At 0-5 in one-score games, enough is enough. These kinds of stats tend to even themselves out over the course of a season, so it’s no surpri–

Then they lose a close game

Why?! It’s true. Just because Nebraska finally won a one-score game doesn’t mean they’ll win them all from now on. Oh no, 2021 has one more punch to the gut waiting for Huskers fans.

Upset Iowa or Ohio State

I won’t predict the final scores here — it’s safe to say within 8 — but one of these two teams is going down in Lincoln. That’s enough to …

Save Scott Frost’s job, but not stop him from the same references

Frost gets a vote of confidence from Trev Alberts, but he warns him publicly at the celebratory news conference, “If you lose in 2022, you better lose big.” Frost reflexively responds that it “won’t be the same movie.”

Viral star Jon Johnston appears on Big Noon Saturday

But the columnist is too distraught with the Frost news to deliver a rant that equals his “There’s no hope. %^&* everything. Go Big Red.” He’s hired the next day to work for the team as a reporter and photographer and special teams coach.

First things first: Beat Purdue

And yet I saved this one for last. Coming off the high of a win over No. 2 Iowa and a battle with Wisconsin, Nebraska has a chance to catch the Boilermakers off-guard. It all starts here. None of the other bold dominoes can fall until this win takes place. It’s the key to unlocking the multiverse strand that includes a bowl berth this year.