OU AD says Sooners ‘fully expect’ to play Huskers this fall amid reports NU is exploring backing out | Football

“We’ve been looking forward to celebrating these two storied programs and have collaborated on various aspects of what promises to be a special weekend.” 

Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley referred local reporters to Castiglione’s statement and added, “We can’t wait to play it here in September.”

Nebraska officials did not immediately responded to the Journal Star’s request for comment. 

The contract between Nebraska and Oklahoma includes a $1 million buyout. The teams are also supposed to play in Lincoln in 2022. In 2016, the teams added two more games to the series, a home-and-home in 2029 and 2030. 

Nebraska is set to play five Big Ten games at home this fall, so if it also backs out of the game against the Sooners and plays a nonconference home game, it will have eight for the season. That’s one extra from a normal regular-season schedule. 

NU typically generates about $5 million per home game in ticket sales and concessions, but the net gain for a rescheduled home game would be less than that considering the buyout and the need to pay a guarantee to pay a potential new opponent to come to Lincoln. It would be even less, of course, if there is any limitation on capacity at Memorial Stadium this fall. 

Stadium reported that Nebraska had reached out to schools in the Mid-American Conference and Old Dominion about playing on Sept. 18. Currently, ODU and every MAC team has a game scheduled for that weekend and all but three —– Miami (Ohio), Akron and Bowling Green — are slated to play Football Bowl Subdivision teams. Old Dominion was an FCS team until it moved up to FBS in 2014 and joined Conference USA. The Monarchs are currently scheduled to play at Liberty on Sept. 18.