Nebraska Baseball 2025: Breakthrough or Groundhog Day?
Can the Huskers build on their momentum from last year's Big Ten championship team? Here's our 2025 season preview.
For some, Nebraska baseball appears to have Bo Pelini’d. You know, that frustrating sports purgatory where you consistently put out good, respectable teams that always seem to bump up against the same ceiling time and time again. For Bo’s teams that meant going beyond 10 wins & winning conference titles, for Erstad and now Bolt’s boys, it has become winning a regional.
The comparison isn’t perfect. Bo always produced nearly identical results every single season. At the same time, baseball has had the lower lows of losing seasons now and then, along with the higher highs of winning a few conference titles here and there. But in both cases, the idea of either team breaking through their respective ceilings always felt like something that was perfectly plausible to expect any year now, yet something you never truly expected to happen deep down.
On paper, Nebraska baseball can certainly win a regional. But it’s hard to picture going to a super regional until it materializes before our very eyes. When asked about my expectations last year, I said I wanted to see Nebraska accomplish something they hadn’t since the 2000s run. Well, mission accomplished. They won a conference tournament for the first time since 2005. This year, I’ll answer it the same because the only next steps available to the B1G Era Huskers are to either host a regional or to win one.
Or both. Why not both? Both are good.
We’ve been to regionals. We’ve won conference championships (both regular season and tournament). We’ve been to the regional final. The only next possible step is a true breakthrough season.
So, in the spirit of that eternal question that pops its head up every season, I’ll ask it again. Is this year the year?
Reasons for optimism
I think, on paper, Will Bolt has put together the best roster and best assistant coaching staff of the B1G era. I highly emphasize on paper because we have all seen similar situations, for whatever reason, never materialize. But the potential for a special season is certainly there.
The returning production alone is hard not to be excited about. Returning seven position players who started 43 or more games from a 40-win B1G Tourney champ and regional team is always going to get fans dreaming. I haven’t been able to verify this, but according to Dylan Carrey, the team returns 65% of its at-bats from last season.
Add to that returning production:
A Top 10 ranked JUCO class to supplement the returning production, along with a handful of highly touted transfers, such as outfielder and slugging machine Cael Frost
A pre-season All-American Ace (Mason McConnaughey) on the mound Friday nights
A deep bullpen of relievers featuring the likes of Drew Christo, Caleb Clark, and Jalen Worthley
Year 2 of Rob Childress’ return, the best pitching coach in school history
And make no mistake, Childress is the best pitching coach in school history, and the miracle he worked on Brett Sears last year was something no one saw coming. I can’t wait to see which pitcher comes out of nowhere this year to become a major pro-prospect because I have a feeling in my bones that someone beyond McConnaughey will emerge.
As for the defense and offense, Gabe Swansen could legitimately compete for B1G Player of the Year. Swansen hit 18 home runs in 2023 and only eight last year after a slow start to the season. But I don’t need to tell anyone what an animal he became in last year’s postseason. Dreams of breakthroughs always feel a little more real when you have a player who is a legitimate threat to change any game whenever he steps up to the plate.
If Riley Silva, who was an on-base machine, can raise his actual batting average a bit more to generate hits instead of merely being content to earn a walk, that could be a difference maker.
Can Dylan Carey finally have the superstar season we’ve been waiting for? Can guys like Overbeek, Brumbaugh, and Sanderson play consistently at their highest levels? They’re all superstar-caliber players when at their best. Perhaps some experience under their belts was needed to reach that next level.
Reasons to pump the brakes
There are question marks, for sure. Let’s consider those before we start making plans for June nights in Omaha. The biggest is pitching depth. Beyond our Ace and the top of our bullpen, the rest of the staff is either inexperienced or has a history of inconsistency.
There are talented names aplenty beyond those mentioned above, including Tucker Timmerman and Luke Broderick, who have been listed by national publications to be future pro-prospects. Two intriguing true freshmen, Pryce Bender and J’Shawn Unger, have also been tabbed as “Impact Freshman” by D1 Baseball.
Will Walsh is about as experienced a pitcher as you can ask for in college and always shows up for the B1G tourney. He’s also prone to enough bad outings that never truly allow him to get into a groove in the regular season. He’s set to start this season as the Sunday guy. Having a reliable Sunday guy is often the difference between good teams and great teams. Between merely making a regional and hosting one.
Brockett captured the hearts of everyone last year by throwing the first individual no-hitter for Nebraska in 70 years. He also pitched a phenomenal eight innings with only one run surrendered in the B1G Championship before being relieved by Sears in the 9th. Like Walsh, he’s another experienced veteran who has struggled with consistency.
Not to mention, both Christo and Clark have extensive experience starting and could transition back if needed.
Childress has plenty of ingredients to cook with, and given his history, I feel good about my chances of posting this mash-up meme-monstrosity of Matt Rhule and Rob Childress many a time on my socials this year. But, of course, it would be foolish to count those chickens before they hatch.
Can Nebraska also solve their inexplicable mid-week collapses?
Part of the issue has been starting pitcher and reliever depth. Again, on paper, we have the pieces to fix that, but it actually needs to happen. A larger part of the issue seems to be that Nebraska has become flat-out jinxed during mid-week games in the Bolt Era. And we all know as football fans how hard jinxes can be to break. It’s hard to predict with any sort of accuracy if we’ll be able to get over this mental hurdle this year. It’s something I’ll personally have to see to believe.
Can some of the above-mentioned returning offensive production take a step forward in 2025? The lineup didn’t have much home run power until Josh Caron and Gabe Swansen caught fire in the postseason, and at times, it felt like a big missing ingredient in our offense.
And finally, how easy will it be to replace 4th-round draft pick Josh Caron behind the plate? Creighton transfer Hogan Helligso has been a steady presence for our rivals, but replacing an arguably Top 5 Husker catcher of all time will always be a tough task.
The stakes for 2025 are big for Nebraska baseball
Wasting a talented roster always leaves a bitter taste in one’s mouth. We only have to go back to 2023 to remember what that’s like when we had two of the best hitters in college baseball in, Max Anderson and Brice Matthews, yet failed to make a regional. That team also produced the best Nebraska draft results since 2005, with four players going in the Top 10 rounds.
In 2025, we again have a roster that is built to achieve something special. While making a regional and bouncing out would still qualify as a good but not a great season, the feeling that Nebraska’s ceiling is merely making it to the tournament and nothing more would only feel further cemented.
I don’t want to say if not now, then it won’t happen any time soon. College baseball can be a funny sport. 2019 Michigan, a team Nebraska beat 3 out of 5 times in May, was one out away from going 0-2 in the B1G tournament and completely missing the NCAA tournament. Instead, they hit a clutch 2-RBI double to survive, won enough tourney games to sneak into the last few spots of the NCAA bracket, and rode a magical carpet all the way to the CWS finals.
It’s always possible this team could fall short, yet a future, less talented roster could catch that magical Cinderella fever. It happens to some team somewhere in college baseball every year.
But there is a sense of do or die to this year’s team. A super regional appearance (or more) could skyrocket the team’s trajectory for years to come. Missing the postseason could make Bolt’s seat very warm. Merely repeating last year and the seasons of so many B1G-era teams could drag us even deeper into that usually good but never great purgatory we’ve been in for about a decade now.
The stakes are high. I’m excited and terrified. This is exactly how the beginning of a season is supposed to feel.
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