Troy Dannen tells Big Ten NU wants off Friday home game list

Dannen said on his monthly Huskers Radio Network show that he sent a letter to Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti formally requesting that NU not host Friday night games before its every-other-year battle with Iowa on the day after Thanksgiving.

“Just because of the size of the stadium and locale, I don’t think we want to be canceling in-person classes,” said Dannen, referring to the university’s decision to embrace remote learning on the Friday before kickoff. “I’m sure the students didn’t mind but, at the end of the day, the more we can avoid that, the better off everybody will be. If it happens again, it happens again.”

Dannen said he didn’t like “other athletics directors in the league saying ‘by golly, we will not do that,’” related to refusing to play Friday night games. Since opening its 2015 season at Utah on a Thursday night, Michigan has played every regular season game, home or away, on a Saturday. Wolverine A.D. Warde Manuel has said the school will “absolutely not” play a Friday night game.

“I’m not sure any institution should have the unilateral ability to do that,” Dannen said.

But if schools are able to refuse it, Dannen said, “Nebraska should be in the same position with 90,000 fans and the proximity we have to campus.”

More notes from Dannen’s chat:

Nebraska plans a “massive, massive” HuskerVision video board that will loom over the renovated South Stadium in 3-to-5 years, Dannen said, but the North Stadium video board may be replaced for next season if NU can pluck out the current one and install a new one in its place.

“The north board has outlived its useful life,” Dannen said.  

Red balloons will return for the Oct. 5 homecoming game vs. Rutgers, Dannen said, presuming the weather cooperates.

Nebraska long had a tradition of selling and handing out red balloons — released after NU’s first touchdown — before former Husker A.D. Trev Alberts ended the tradition. Dannen brought it back for the Colorado game three weeks.

Dannen said Nebraska would like to select two games per year for balloons, with one being the designated homecoming game.

With Nebraska aiming for a 2027-28 Memorial Stadium renovation, Dannen said the school can improve its Wi-Fi service before then — and will — but the existing system will be torn down once renovation begins.

Verizon, Dannen said, is considering an “eight figure” upgrade to the cellular system inside the stadium.

Dannen would like the stadium to host a Bud Crawford championship boxing match if it works with Crawford’s schedule.

Crawford, who spoke to the Husker team before its 28-10 win over Colorado, has won bouts inside CHI Health Center and Pinnacle Bank Arena.

Schedules for the 2025 Big Ten football slate won’t arrive until “February, maybe March,” Dannen said.

Nebraska and other league teams know who they’ll play and where the games will be played, but not when.

“It’s television-related,” Dannen said. He noted the College Football Playoff championship game lands on Jan. 20.