The Newsletter is tuckered out, but we press on. Sorry, no Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift news this week. You need some Nebraska sports content and so that’s what we’ll do. District football starts this week. Volleyball is heating up and (gulp) we are on the down hill stretch for girls golf, softball, boys tennis and cross country.

The Huskers won a football game. That was fun. How about Nebraska and Creighton volleyball both ranked in the top-11 in the nation? (Looks like there could be a big game this weekend?) But, Nebraska’s No. 2 ranking is not the best in the state. Hello, Wayne State. Super cool to see. Our high school volleyball is pretty good too.

Let’s dive in to the mid-week Newsletter and hope it keeps your interest as long as this awesome Nebraska, Kentucky rally. What a watch.

The High School Roundup

A lot of things to do and get you caught up on for a Wednesday in high school sports. Let’s get you ready for the rest of the week and see what we missed.

UPON FURTHER REVIEW: You know, look, we are always going to miss some in the Saturday newsletter, so we found three Friday night football games we wanted to showcase for you in today’s letter (we might try to make this a habit). Don’t hate us if we put your team in here and jinx them like we did to BDS last week.

Millard West 20, Creighton Prep 7. After a heartbreaking loss to open the season to Millard South, the Wildcats have bounced back quite nicely. And, while a win against the 1-4 Jays might not look good now, it might look good if the Jays can run the table an finish 5-4 (which looks possible). The Cats have given up just 30 points in their three wins.

Pawnee City 58, Red Cloud 22. We got introduced to Jett Farwell and Anthony Kling last year when the Indians advanced all the way to the six-man title game. They are at it again this year and were big in Pawnee City’s win over then, fourth-ranked Red Cloud. Kling threw two touchdowns — both to Farwell — and ran for 139 yards, while Farwell had 74 all-purpose yards and 13 tackles. The rematch with Parkview Christian is next week, but who is looking ahead?

Mullen 44, Hyannis 0. Ask the good folks in Mullen how the football team is this year and they will tell you they don’t really know yet. Fair enough, they are still 4-0 and moved that direction on Friday with a convincing win over then-unbeaten Hyannis. The 10 passes per game are probably a little much for the home crowd so far, but the Broncos can still tote the rock — nearly 1,000 yards in four outings. The biggest challenges await for the final two weeks: road games with No. 1 South Loup and No. 10 Sandhills/Thedford.

RANK ‘EM: The top football teams in the state in August have remained mostly the same with five of seven teams from the preseason still on top of their respective classes. They include: Omaha Westside, Bennington, Boone Central, North Platte St. Patrick’s and South Loup. In Class C-2, defending champion Norfolk Catholic is on top and in six-man, SEM remains No. 1 for a second week. Here are the coaches picks here for September 17. 

GOTW: Our friend Mike Sautter mixed it up on us a little bit with two Thursday and two Friday games for the Pinnacle Bank Game-of-the-Week this week. The small town Friday games are having a little tussle with Johnson-Brock, Lourdes in a lead over Cedar Catholic, Oakland-Craig. Another great week of high school football we have ahead of us. You can still vote for your choice until noon today. 

BIG VOLLEY WEEK: So much can happen in a single weekend of volleyball, it’s sometimes hard to keep up. Take last weekend for example. Grand Island Senior High is treading water in Class A at 9-4. Then, they go to the LPS Invite beat three ranked teams while going 4-2. Their only two losses were to No. 1 Papio South and No. 2 Lincoln Southwest. So, there are the Islanders, ranked fifth in Class A this week in our coaches poll.

The coaches in volleyball have been as spot on as (if not better) than our football coaches with each of the preseason No. 1 teams still at the top of their class. They include: Papio South, Skutt Catholic, Minden, Lincoln Lutheran, Amherst and Overton.

There is a big one in Minden tomorrow night as the top-ranked Whippets host No. 2 Gothenburg. Both are undefeated. And, tonight Class A, No. 4 Millard West travels to face the top-ranked Titans. UPDATED COACHES POLL

ALL THE SCORES // SEASON POWER POINTS 

RUNNIN’ AND TRYING TO STAY UPRIGHT: Full send for the 2023 cross country season as we are just a few days a way from the big (huge?) UNK Invite that serves as a mini state preview in most cases. (Hopefully the weather cools off a bit?) If you need to get prepared for that race (or any others) the Prep Running Nerd team has you set up with Week 3 individual rankings. There are also updated team rankings for Classes A, B and C. 

But, most importantly, the weekly NERDSLETTER is ready for you. Do us a favor. If you only click on one thing in this week’s e-mail please make it this so you can read about McCook’s Grant Cappel and Perkins County’s Elijah Goodell.

SOFTBALL, DOWN THE HOME STRETCH: Softball is like way to close to the postseason for us. Sheesh. We need to figure out a way to get out to a few more games for you, but we continue to partner with nebpreps.com and @nebraskahssb (loads of scores and updates over there) for our softball coverage. Gretna (20-1), Blair (20-3) and Ashland-Greenwood (17-4) continue to hold the top spot in the coaches poll, but, maybe more importantly they are all No. 1 in the season long power points that will determine district seedings. Some important scores from last night. 

ALL THE SCORES // SEASON POWER POINTS // Latest Nebraska Softball Show on NebraskaTok

AND, THE OTHER NET: Each Sunday, we’ll release the top-10 power point rankings for the Nebraska tennis coaches in each class. These rankings will be used for a new state dual tournament in Kearney the week before the state tennis championships. Get the latest rankings here. 

The Rear View Mirror

STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION: It’s been sometime since the play-by-play typist whispered to his spotter — the great and wonderful Rod Henkel — and said, “That resembled an actual football game tonight, didn’t it?”

He at least didn’t say no. (Wink emoji)

So, this first win of the Matt Rhule era was a 35-11 pounding of Northern Illinois (not your ordinary, everyday directional school) and a bit of a surprise. But, what was more interesting was HOW Nebraska went about 'the football’ as old coach Mike Riley used to say.

READ THE FULL REAR VIEW MIRROR FOR NORTHERN ILLINOIS HERE.

Parting Shot: Thank You

NEW HERE??: We’d like to say ‘thanks’ for reading the newsletter and sharing your love of Nebraska sports with us. As we continue to fine tune our content we are working tirelessly to get you more in-depth content on the sight. We’ll be sorting this our and figuring it out in the coming weeks as state postseason play begins. We can’t wait for you to be with us on the ride. If you love what we are doing, please forward this e-mail or link to a friend. Then, they can subscribe (for free) just like you (and our social channels are right below).

Until Saturday…