Mike'l Severe Explains Why He's Bullish on Nebraska Football in 2025

Josh Peterson and Jack Mitchell welcomed Mike’l Severe to the I-80 Club for the first time ever this week and they spent plenty of time discussing Husker football. Mike’l is buying into Nebraska in 2025. What are his biggest reasons for doing so?

Below is a lightly-edited transcript of their conversation.

Jack: Josh texted me earlier and he said, “ I think Mike’l is surprisingly bullish on the team this year.”

Mike’l: I am!

Jack: Why?

Mike’l: I just wrote Damon [Benning] last week and just out of the blue; no special reason. I wrote him and I said, “you know, I don’t know why, but I really feel that this team is going to be good.” Part of it is listening to the coaches talk and going, “wow, they’re really confident.” And there’s something to be said when you’re outside of the real media and they’re just talking themselves, and you hear that confidence and you’re like, “oh, they really are confident.” And they are. And so that’s part of it. 

We’ve been talking about having an offensive line that can both run block and pass block together; be a combination of veterans and talented. I believe they do have that by bringing in the two transfers, by what [Henry] Lutovsky has become. And then, you know, for that one position you have left, because I believe [Justin] Evan’s gonna be a good center, that one position, you got about four bodies. So if you can’t figure it out and can’t put those four bodies…

I went back and I watched every single snap every single week of what Gunnar Gottula did. And I’m telling you, he had to get some double teams to get help. But for the most part, he had a really good year for a guy who just got thrown in there without any experience. So because of that, and this is not new, I said this on Big Red Wrap Up way back during last season; yes, they’re gonna miss Ty Robinson. Yes, they’re gonna miss Nash Hutmacher.

But they’re gonna be much more athletic. They’re gonna be able to be able to do some gapping stuff that they necessarily couldn’t do. And as good as Ty was, I believe that Riley Van Poppel will be better than him. I believe Riley Van Poppel is going to be an all-conference player. I believe that guy has the skills and even though he’s tall like Ty was, he has a much better lean. He stays low. He’s better laterally.

So I believe when you look at the players they have on the defense with the offensive line being better, the natural growth you should get between a freshman and sophomore year with a quarterback and then adding all of these skill guys around them. You know, I said to Damon, nine is not out of the question. This is not. And he wrote back to me and said, “you know, I kind of feel the same way.” So I don’t know. It’s July.

Josh: Let me ask you this then, Mike’l, because like last year there was also the confidence, the quiet confidence. And then I remember it became public confidence because Rhule went on with Joel Klatt, if I remember right around about this time. It was right before Big Ten Media Days. And that was the first real inclination that I got last year of like, okay, they think that they can make a jump. Why, why do you think this is different this time around?

Mike’l: Yeah, so I picked 7-5 last year. I didn’t feel bad about the way I picked them. Honestly, how many games should they have won? Eight at a minimum. There’s a couple things. One, special teams has been an albatross around this team’s neck. There’s nobody you talk to on an existing basis that follows the special teams as close as I do. Part of my job. Part of my job. And it’s so frustrating that we can’t even have somebody that could be a contender for returner of the week that plays for Nebraska; the team I’m watching. We can’t even have a contender. They can’t even be in the top 10.

So finally bringing in a guy who, from what we’ve seen, Mike Ekeler can handle special teams and they’re giving it off to him. And I know he’s going to do a better job of making sure they can return. I know he’s going to do a better job of trying to rush the punter. I know all that’s going to happen. So I feel really good about special teams; the thing that’s been the worst outside of two years since 2010.

Then on the other side, you know, I think Dana [Holgorsen] is where he should be. Dana should be an offensive coordinator. Dana should be a guy that’s given the reins for a team. He’s a guy that should be able to game plan week by week, figure out what’s wrong, give him the bodies for it, and make things happen.

Now, defensively, I don’t, I said this many times too. I don’t care who the defensive coordinator is. I know this head coach. The one thing he’s going to make sure that is right is the defense. He’s going to do it even at Carolina. That last year when things were falling apart, and I watched them play against the Saints, they were flying around. They’re playing good defense. And then once he got fired, that’s really what carried [Steve Wilks], the assistant coach, to almost get the head coaching job because of that, because of how well that defense played. And so I believe that’ll be fine. It’s changing our coaches.

Now, will they miss Tony White’s adjustments and maybe things that he made game wise?  Maybe. I don’t know. John Butler doesn’t necessarily have the greatest history as a defensive coordinator. But when your head coach is concerned with it, when he’s kind of the other guy who’s your defensive coordinator, and then you bring in a guy and Phil Snow who does have a history of being very good as a defensive coordinator, I think all those things together make a big difference.

This is not the normal year three for Matt Rhule. The other year threes didn’t feature him changing out three coordinators. It didn’t. So this is different, but I think it’s different in a good way. But yeah, I told you this, they put out that 8.5 on MGM, +150; bro was thinking about it. Bro was thinking about it. I was thinking about it. I was like, “Oh, okay. +150.”

Jack: Mike’l, how would you describe Dylan Raiola’s year last year?

Mike’l: Frustrating. It’s extremely frustrating. I say this all the time too, you know, we’re sitting up there in a very high press box, one of the highest in the country and we see the guys open.  Don’t tell me in a press conference that guys aren’t open. Don’t tell me they’re not getting off a press and if they’re not getting off press, put them in motion. What are you doing? Run some picks. Everybody else does. All that conversation pissed me off. Then I would watch him not pull the trigger. And maybe that was because, and I believe recently that it was said to whoever they did the one-on-one interview with that he hit a freshman wall or something like that. I think part of it was injury.

Josh: Holgorsen said that to [Steven] Sipple.

Mike’l: So you had you had that situation where we the freshman wall. That’s one thing. He was obviously banged up. We know that he was a little banged up. But I think he lost confidence. I think he lost confidence and saying, “I’ve got to get this ball out of my hand to the open guy when it’s supposed to be let go.”

Watch the clip below!

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