Preposterous, I thought.
The sheer incredulity!
In an empty room, I was positively vituperative in discussion with absolutely no one when I saw Nebraska coach Matt Rhule appear on my television Sunday in the season finale of HBO’s “Lanterns.” As himself! Fictionally, recruiting and winning a five-star commitment from a character who is a member of cyborgs known as Manhunters.
Then it dawned on me. Nebraska has a chance to do something even more outrageous than see its head coach in a TV show about intergalactic space cops in the same universe as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman: It could beat No. 7 Indiana on Saturday (noon ET, FOX).
In the show, which is set in Rushville, Nebraska, Rhule earned the commitment from a 5-foot-5 five-star quarterback — yes, really — named Noah Macon, an actual cyborg, and he sees the game like you’d expect a calculating, world-crushing alien to see it. Like Tom Brady.
I’m sure I was not the only person who found himself (delightfully?) surprised to see Rhule sitting in the stands while Macon quarterbacked his team to a state championship and then, after winning state, saw Rhule hand Macon a Nebraska flat bill and commit on the field.
Matt Rhule holds a 24-19 record midway through his fourth season as Nebraska’s head coach. (Photo by Steven Branscombe/Getty Images)
“I filmed that not this past summer but the summer before,” Rhule recalled Monday at his local media availability. “Chris Mundy is the executive producer. He’s a Nebraska native and huge Husker fan. So I got to know him at one point through somebody else, and we’d become friends.
“As they were doing the show, as it was obviously based in Nebraska, he asked me if I would want to go out and film that role, and so I did. … I’ve enjoyed trying to catch it here and there. I don’t know that I’ll be taking my talents to Broadway any time soon, but it was really cool to see Nebraska on HBO.”
Not just on HBO but in prime time. At 9 p.m. ET. In the “House of the Dragon” timeslot, “The Wire” timeslot. That timeslot is coveted and warrants only big-time players fit for big audiences.
“Lanterns” is based on the popular DC Comics comic book character John Stewart and his journey to becoming Earth’s Green Lantern. Stewart’s job is simple: protect Earth from various forces of evil that might try to annihilate the inhabitants of this planet. Macon probably turns out to be a supervillain, and there’s a chance we get to find out as this TV show has become a hit.
How serendipitous the timing is for Rhule and Nebraska that this Saturday his 5-0 Cornhuskers have a chance to face not only another undefeated foe to prove their mettle at home, but also the defending national champion Indiana Hoosiers, who are riding a 21-game winning streak.
Curt Cignetti and Indiana haven’t lost since Notre Dame defeated them in the 2024 College Football Playoff. (Photo by Dan Squicciarini/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The stakes for Nebraska are as high as they’ve ever been and higher still when we focus on what a win could mean. Nebraska vs. No. 7 Indiana will be the first matchup at Memorial Stadium featuring two teams that are 5-0 or better in nearly 25 years (No. 3 Nebraska beat No. 2 Oklahoma on Oct. 27, 2001).
Without a question, a victory ignites the Lantern light in the middle of Rushville’s town square, announcing the Huskers as bona fide Big Ten title contenders and a College Football Playoff team. We’d have no choice but to rank Nebraska, and call it the biggest win for Nebraskans since Stewart and late Green Lantern Hal Jordan took down a mess of Manhunters outside a motel.
And this Nebraska team is surging.
The 2026 season is the first that the Huskers have opened at 5-0 since 2016 — and the first season under Rhule with such a record. However, the Huskers remain unranked because we — I — have really had no reason to trust them to purport themselves like a ranked team.
Consider that Nebraska hasn’t defeated a ranked team this season. Consider that Rhule and the Cornhuskers are 0-9 against top-25 teams. Now consider that Nebraska has not beaten a ranked opponent in its last 31 attempts dating back to Sept. 17, 2016, when Mike Riley’s Huskers knocked off No. 22 Oregon.
A win against Indiana is a lot to ask for Rhule’s Huskers.
It requires a certain suspense of imagination to even visualize such a thing — not unlike a 5-foot-5 quarterback reaching five-star status in a town with a population of 877, according to U.S. Census data. Or a Black Green Lantern who made his own way, picked his own path, created his own Green Lantern’s oath and powers his ring with traces of yellow fear. Or that one grossly arrogant ghost of Hal Jordan might help present a notion that serves Stewart as much as it can serve Nebraska when it kicks off against Indiana this Saturday.
“Don’t be afraid to be afraid,” Jordan tells Stewart in the Season 1 finale.
For the Huskers, the fear of losing to a 32nd-straight top-25 opponent, of squandering another fast start to the season, of being ridiculed for coming up short in a big game once again, is all too real. And, yes, it could happen — it’s likely to happen — that they lose.
Now, though, revel in knowing you’ve got a chance to be heroic when everyone is watching.
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