Friday, University of Tennessee, Knoxville athletic director Danny White chimed in on ESPN’s Pete Thamel’s report on X about the cancellation of the Volunteers’ planned games in 2026 and 2027 against the Nebraska Cornhuskers, saying it was Nebraska’s move, and the Volunteers were “very disappointed” by it.
Correction: Tennessee is not canceling this series. Nebraska did. We are very disappointed that they didn’t want to play these games, especially this close to 2026. https://t.co/uSz7kAXk94
— Danny White (@AD_DannyWhite) February 21, 2025
In fairness to Thamel’s reporting, even that X post included, “A driver of the move was Nebraska wanting eight home games in 2027 when they expected reduced stadium capacity because of renovations.” So White can certainly offer a “correction” that it wasn’t “Tennessee and Nebraska” canceling the series, but the initial post did convey the sense that Nebraska was behind it.
But more than an actual reporting correction of significance, though, this stands out for White very publicly saying Tennessee didn’t want this change and Nebraska did, and choosing X to do so. (And, notably, this came after White and Nebraska AD Troy Dannen were presumably in the same rooms this week at meetings of the SEC and Big Ten ADs in New Orleans around College Football Playoff qualification and expansion.)
White also ripped this further to Grant Ramey of On3’s Volquest, citing that Nebraska is only paying $500,000 per game ($1 million total) to Tennessee to get out of the contract, partly because this deal was originally signed in 2006.
“The buyout implications need to be much steeper,” White said. “This is such an old contract. It was postponed multiple times. If it had been postponed when I was here, I would have asked for an increase in the buyout to postpone it.
“I don’t know the history if we were requesting to push it back or if Nebraska was. The buyout terms are reflective of a contract that’s 20 years old. They are not steep enough to dissuaded this kind of decision making from our opponent.”
Of course, there are some complications to this.
The history is indeed of Tennessee trying to push it back, as they moved to postpone the series in 2013 as part of their plans to play Virginia Tech at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2016. And yes, White wasn’t involved in that move; he was the AD at Buffalo then. But this was previously altered on their side, and their school has canceled other contracts before as well (although not necessarily on as short of a timeframe, which appears to be White’s real objection here).
On the Nebraska side, Dannen told the media on the record that the rationale was to need more home games given the potentially limited stadium capacity around renovations. This means the Cornhuskers will now have home games with Bowling Green and Miami (Ohio) across 2026 and 2027 instead of going to Knoxville in 2026 and hosting the Vols in 2027. However, others questioned if this was a move to try and play opponents more easily to boost the team’s record, especially after Indiana made the College Football Playoff with a criticized schedule. Regardless of whether that was a desired factor, the Nebraska schedule looks easier in 2026 and 2027.
What’s also interesting here is that White’s X announcement prompted a lot of lobbying by people there to play against their school in 2026. Much of that came from fans and media, but even South Florida head coach Alex Golesh weighed in:
Sup @AD_DannyWhite #ComeToTheBay https://t.co/7qFRFkDLYT
— Alex Golesh (@CoachGolesh) February 21, 2025
In terms of the actual scheduling, there could still be further things to work out here. The SEC is considering going to nine conference games (although that likely won’t start until 2027 at the earliest), which would be the same number the Big Ten has played since 2016. That could lead to SEC schools playing a 10th game against a Big Ten opponent under a cross-conference scheduling agreement. So maybe the Cornhuskers and Volunteers will still play at some point soon.
For the moment, it’s quite notable to see White calling out Nebraska this way. And it’s interesting to see him correcting Thamel’s report. It fits with that recent history of perhaps not-so-mutual moves. But hey, at least this is someone not just taking issue with a report but also saying their side of it on the record. That would be nice to see in some other circumstances.
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