Nebraska and Tennessee will not play a home-and-home series in football that was scheduled for 2026 and 2027 after the Cornhuskers opted out of the agreement for those games.
Tennessee athletic director Danny White revealed in an X post that Nebraska called off the series and added that UT was “very disappointed” by the decision.
The teams were scheduled to play at Nebraska in 2026 and at Tennessee in 2027.
Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen explained that renovations to the school’s football stadium that will temporarily lower seating capacity was the motivation behind the decision.
“We are making plans to embark on major renovations of Memorial Stadium that may impact our seating capacity for the 2027 season,” Dannen said in a statement.
“The best scenario for us is to have eight home games in 2027 to offset any potential revenue loss from a reduced capacity. The additional home games will also have a tremendous economic benefit on the Lincoln community.”
Nebraska said it will instead play Bowling Green at home in 2026 and against Miami of Ohio in 2027 on the days it was originally set to play Tennessee.
By backing out of the agreement, Nebraska ends what had been a nearly two-decade process to get the Cornhuskers and Volunteers on the same field in football.
The series was originally agreed upon in 2006 and first scheduled for the 2016 and 2017 seasons, but in 2013 the schools decided to delay the series by a decade.
Nebraska will pay $500,000 for each game to get out of the scheduling agreement, totaling $1 million, according to reports.
Tennessee had its non-conference football schedule set through the 2030 season before Nebraska’s change of heart, and now must find an opponent who can fill its newly-vacant games in 2026 and 2027 for a home-and-home series, or look for a potential neutral site opportunity.
White was not pleased to hear that Nebraska elected to remove itself from the series, especially this close to it actually being played.
“It’s extremely disappointing,” he told Volquest, adding that the buyout implications to get out of the series should be “much steeper,” given how long the agreement had been in place.
“This series has been under contract for so long. We had been planning on playing it. For it to get cancelled this short notice we are extremely disappointed.”
He added: “… You really can’t pull an audible this late in the game.”
But the Cornhuskers did, and now the Vols are looking to someone to play in the next few years.
–
–
More college football from SI: Top 25 Rankings | Schedule | Teams
Follow College Football HQ: Bookmark | Rankings | Picks
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
