The Nebraska Cornhuskers wiped out a future home-and-home series with a top-flight Southeastern Conference opponent.
Nebraska and Tennessee were poised to play against each other in the near future. But, on Friday, Nebraska announced that series was no more.
“The Vols were scheduled to have a home and home with Nebraska but the Cornhusker administration has informed Tennessee they are buying out of the contract,” Volquest’s Brent Hubbs wrote.
“The original contract which was drafted in 2006 states that the buyout to get out of the games is $1 million,” Hubbs continued. “The games were supposed to be played in 2016 and 2017, but both parties agreed to push the game back a decade and now the games are off. Because of the contract’s age and terms, the repercussions for Nebraska to opt out are hefty enough to prevent such a move.”
Obviously this winds down a potentially attractive nonconference series. But there might be more method to the madness here given another story that came through this week. As the SEC and the Big Ten continue to barter for more power and presence in the College Football Playoff, there might be a future scheduling agreement between the two conferences.
Granted, the history in “scheduling agreements” is very sparse and tends to not work out. So perhaps this is nothing more than Nebraska deciding to move on.
Nebraska and Tennessee are two programs who enjoyed a lot of success before the 21st century. The 2000s haven’t been too kind to either, but the Vols have recently turned up on some progress.
The Huskers still have some work to do in Lincoln. But Matt Rhule hopes to engineer a turnaround.
