Nebraska Cornhuskers vs. Iowa Hawkeyes prediction, pick for CFB Week 14 on Friday 11/28/25

Dan Johnson takes you through his preview, prediction, and pick for CFB Week 14’s game between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Black Friday in Lincoln feels less like a party and more like a repeat stress test. Nebraska and Iowa both sit 7-4, both chasing 8-4 and an upper-tier bowl, but only one fanbase keeps reliving the same ending. Iowa has taken 10 of 14 since joining the Big Ten and hasn’t lost in Lincoln since 2011, with the last two meetings ending 13-10 on walk-off field goals. The backdrop today is perfect for another nerve grind: mid-20s temperatures, a wintry mix in the forecast, and a total parked around the high 30s daring both offenses to blink first. Below is my prediction for CFB Week 13’s football game between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Iowa Hawkweyes.

Here’s how I’ll play it. I’ll be pumping out these predictions for individual games all season, with plenty of coverage here on DraftKings Network. Follow my handle @dansby_edits for more betting plays.

With Nebraska holding the ball, everything orbits Emmett Johnson. The Huskers average 30.5 points and 379.5 yards per game, with roughly 243 through the air and 137 on the ground, but Dylan Raiola’s 2,000 passing yards have long been in sweats after the season-ending injury over a month ago. TJ Lateef steps in having completed about 65% of his throws across two starts for 392 yards and three passing touchdowns, plus a little quarterback run game juice, but Penn State just dragged him into a 187-yard, scoreless slog last week. Johnson is the real problem: 1,234 rushing yards, 11 rushing scores, 5.6 yards per carry, another 348 receiving yards and three more touchdowns, seven 100-yard games and more than a third of Nebraska’s total offense by himself. That profile is exactly the kind of bell cow Iowa designs its entire Tuesday practice around. The Hawkeyes allow only 267.9 yards and 15.1 points per game, sit top 10 nationally in both total and scoring defense, have given up just five runs of 20-plus yards all season, and force quarterbacks to live in long, ugly third downs. Deshaun Lee and Zach Lutmer already have multiple interceptions each, and Parker’s group just stacked nine straight fourth-quarter stops across wins over Oregon and Michigan State. If Johnson doesn’t rip explosives, Nebraska’s backup-led passing game has to fight the best leverage defense it has seen all year in bad weather.

Flip it, and Iowa’s offense isn’t pretty, but it’s tailored exactly to Nebraska’s defensive fracture. The Hawkeyes sit at 309.4 yards per game with 134.8 through the air, 174.5 on the ground and 27.9 points per game; they’re 129th nationally in passing yardage, so they stopped pretending months ago and leaned into a quarterback-and-back run attack. Mark Gronowski has only 1,363 passing yards, but 13 rushing touchdowns, sixth nationally and the most by an Iowa quarterback in a single season. Kamari Moulton leads the backfield with roughly 690 rushing yards and is coming off 78 bruising yards in the Michigan State escape. Nebraska’s defense, on paper, still sparkles against the pass: about 139 passing yards allowed per game, second nationally, and a top-three pass-efficiency profile. But that veneer hides a front seven that ranks 90s-plus nationally in rush yards allowed, bleeds 167 on the ground per game and gives up rushing touchdowns at the highest rate in the country. Minnesota, one of the worst rushing offenses in FBS, just gashed them for 186 rushing yards; Gronowski already has a 130-yard, two-score rushing day this season against a better run defense than this. In a snow-glazed rock fight, that’s the mismatch that actually decides drive length.

Iowa vs. Nebraska pick, best bet

The emotional push sits on Nebraska’s sideline. This is Nebraska’s 36th straight Black Friday game and 15th straight against Iowa, with a senior class getting one last shot to stop a 6-game home losing streak to the same rival and erase back-to-back 13-10 heartbreaks. Rhule’s group is 4-2 in one-score games this season, finally climbing out of the one-possession grave that buried every prior regime, and Raiola was nails late in tight games before the injury. But they’re also coming off a 37-10 beating at Penn State where the offensive line got exposed and the run defense fully cratered, and that’s a brutal way to walk into a short-week fistfight with a team built on body blows. Iowa just stole one from Michigan State with a Wetjen punt return and a Drew Stevens game-winner, which fits their 2025 profile: win the hidden yardage, squeeze every fourth quarter snap, and live with ugly.

Special teams and structure push this fully toward Iowa for me. Kaden Wetjen is the most dangerous return man in college football right now, averaging 28-plus yards per punt return with three touchdowns, and he’s facing a Nebraska punt unit that has been shaky in space. Stevens is at 76% on field goals with four career game-winners, already having ripped Nebraska’s heart out once in this stadium. Iowa’s defense gives up 15.1 points per game; Nebraska’s gives up 21.5. Nebraska scores 30.5 per game; Iowa scores 27.9. In heavy weather against a backup quarterback who just saw his efficiency crater against Penn State pressure, I trust the unit that wins field position and short fields more than the one leaning on late-game magic.

So I’m still on Iowa. I expect Gronowski and Moulton to live in plus-down-and-distance, the Hawkeyes to hammer that leaky Nebraska front for four-plus yards a carry, and Wetjen to either flip the field or flat-out score. Johnson will get his chunk plays, but Iowa’s red-zone defense and disguised pressures against Lateef should keep Nebraska capped in the teens again. Laying around a touchdown with a road favorite in a rivalry is always sweaty, but I’m comfortable riding the structural edges: defense, run game, special teams and weather-proof identity.

Give me Iowa -6.5 and the under, with the Hawkeyes dragging the Heroes Trophy back to Iowa City yet again. Iowa 23, Nebraska 13.

Best bet: Iowa -6 (-110) at Nebraska

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