Want to catch Nebraska in LA? Here’s what local travel companies are planning

Steve Glenn’s busy season is in the spring. The chairman of the Lincoln-based travel agency Executive Travel, Glenn capitalizes on the post-Nebraska spring football game buzz by booking clients on weekend trips to games in the fall.

The business has slowed in recent years, a combination of the internet — it’s far simpler to book flights and hotels today than when the agency started in 1986 — and the Huskers’ on-field struggles over the past half-decade.

But the Big Ten’s schedule announcement provided a spark during a traditionally slower period. Glenn estimates that he received around a dozen calls in the days following the reveal that Nebraska will travel to Los Angeles in 2024 and 2025 for games with conference newcomers UCLA and USC. The games provide both an opportunity for Glenn’s long-standing group tours and a new destination for Husker fans, a group that has historically turned out en masse for games in destinations out of Nebraska’s usual footprint.

“Adding USC and UCLA to the West Coast of course makes it a little more exciting venue than traveling to (a) Purdue-type of venue,” said Glenn, who played offensive line for Nebraska in the 1970s. “I sense that those are a little more exciting destinations for the football fan who wants to enjoy following the team. If you’re going to the L.A. area, the Rose Bowl or the big venue for USC, that’s a little more exciting area to travel to because you can embellish it with other activities in the area.”

A similarly hot ticket was last season’s opener in Dublin. More than 100 people went on Executive Travel’s weeklong tour around Ireland, culminating with the Huskers’ game against Northwestern. The deal for Los Angeles is likely to be a similar length. The typical weekend football trips Glenn plans start on a Friday and end that Sunday. With more tourist attractions in Southern California than most college towns, he anticipates the tours spanning from Wednesday to Sunday.

The exact itinerary of the trip won’t be solidified for a few more months, around a year before the UCLA game in 2024.

There’s precedent for Nebraska fans traveling to California. Around 800 went to the Rose Bowl against Miami through Glenn’s company in 2001. Ahead of the Huskers’ game against then-powerhouse USC in 2006, Executive Travel bought 500 season tickets for LA Coliseum. It was the only way to get in the door with USC refusing to sell to Nebraska residents.

The agency ran a similar system with Oklahoma in the Huskers’ Big 12 era. It had 50 OU season tickets for almost 20 years. Those for Nebraska games were part of a biennial bus trip to Norman. The rest were sold to Oklahoma fans.

The Huskers’ most recent away game against either soon-to-be former Pac-12 school was at USC in 2006. More than 1,000 people came to a Nebraska tailgate, a combination of traveling fans and a healthy alumni contingent in California. 

Californians for Nebraska president Kent Wiedel was excited when news broke of USC and UCLA joining the Big Ten in June 2022. The alumni group organizes watch parties and tailgates as the Huskers play the majority of their games hundreds of miles away. Recurring, easily accessible games were abruptly on the horizon.

“We have to migrate back, as we call it, back to Nebraska to see a game, usually, and we hardly ever get any games in California,” Wiedel said. “We’ve had them over the years. We’ve had UCLA and USC and Fresno, but obviously a lot of excitement from the group. And for us, it’s a way in which we can be part of some things with the university and the Alumni Association.”

With Nebraska’s first conference game on the West Coast at least 15 months away, Wiedel doesn’t know exactly what the gathering will look like, but he has high hopes for the celebration.

The planning is already in progress.

“Typically we get a lot of ex-Nebraska players,” he said. “We have a lot of ex-Nebraska players that live out here in California, too. We’re in the early stages, obviously. It just happened. You have to plan now because I can tell you things really get hard. It takes 12 months to get nailed down.”