Nebraska's Matt Rhule Falls to 2-20 All-Time vs. Top 25 Teams After Loss vs. Illinois

Matt Rhule's shortcomings against ranked teams continued Friday night, as his 22nd-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers fell to the No. 24 Illinois Fighting Illini 31-24 in overtime.

With that loss, Rhule-coached teams are now just 2-20 all-time against teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll, per Shane Shoemaker of Athlon Sports. Rhule has also lost 14 consecutive games to ranked opponents.

While several of Rhule's ranked losses came during his time at Temple and Baylor, Nebraska is in the midst of a long run of futility against ranked opponents as well, having lost 25 straight games to Top 25 teams dating back to 2016, according to ESPN.

The only power conference school that has a longer active losing streak against Top 25 teams is Rutgers, which has lost 40 in a row.

After six consecutive losing seasons under Mike Riley and Scott Frost, Rhule took over as Nebraska's head coach last year. While Nebraska still finished below .500, its 5-7 record was its best mark since 2019.

Despite his issues beating ranked teams, Rhule has a reputation of quickly turning around collegiate programs, which is likely why Nebraska targeted him.

At Temple, the Owls went 2-10 and 6-6 over his first two seasons at the helm before improving to 10-4 in 2015 and 10-3 in 2016.

Then, Rhule helped Baylor improve by leaps and bounds over the course of three seasons, going 1-11 in 2017, 7-6 in 2018 and 11-3 in 2019.

That led to Rhule landing an NFL head coaching job with the Carolina Panthers, but he was unable to achieve similar success, going just 11-27 in parts of three seasons before getting fired during the 2022 campaign.

Rhule is now back where he excels in the college ranks, and prior to Friday's loss, all signs pointed toward the Huskers perhaps being back in the mix as a contender in the Big Ten.

That may still ultimately be the case, but now Nebraska must dig itself out of an 0-1 hole in terms of conference record, which won't be easy in a stacked Big Ten featuring Ohio State, Oregon, USC, Penn State, Michigan and several other big-time schools.

Friday's game was a missed opportunity for the Huskers in many ways, as they had a 17-10 lead at halftime and a 24-17 lead during the fourth quarter. They also missed a 39-yard field goal with 2:59 remaining in regulation that would have given them the lead.

Despite the obvious disappointment involved with losing their conference opener at home, there is still plenty of reason for optimism for the rest of this season and beyond for the Cornhuskers.

That is largely due to the presence of freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola, who is completing 72.2 percent of his passes and has thrown for 967 yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions through his first four collegiate games.

He looks every bit as good as advertised, and if he continues to develop, then Rhule and the Huskers should win their fair share of games against ranked opponents in the coming years.