Keeler: When will CU Buffs, Nebraska renew football rivalry after Saturday night? “It’s going to be a while,” Cornhuskers AD says

Fun fact: New Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen is the proud father of a CU grad. Heck, he even watched his daughter’s commencement ceremonies at Folsom Field recently from the comfort of Buffs AD Rick George’s office.

“She loved it. She loved (CU),” Dannen said by phone earlier this week.

“Pretty good view of the stadium from RIck’s office,” I said.

“It’s a great view of the stadium from Rick’s office,” Dannen replied. “It’s a really, really good view of a lot of things from Rick’s office.”

This week is personal for Dannen, but in a good way. He likes George. He likes Boulder. Heck, he likes CU-Nebraska, and what it means to two fan bases who love to hate on one another.

Saturday night’s Buffs-Cornhuskers tussle at Memorial Stadium marks the end of a four-game, twin home-and-home contract between CU and Nebraska. Alas, it takes two to tango when it comes to keeping a rivalry series going.

And right now, the Huskers administrator told me, the Big Red’s dance card doesn’t have much wiggle room.

“Obviously now, with nine Big Ten (conference) games, and we’ve got Tennessee and Oklahoma on the schedule in years to come, it’s going to be a while before (CU-Nebraska) could potentially fit into anybody’s schedule,” said Dannen, who replaced Trev Alberts in March.

“But I think that in this era of the 12-team (College Football Playoff) bracket, (what) I’m particularly curious about right now is how the playoff selection committee views good nonconference games. How important are they? And I think we’ll learn a lot this year and next year. Which I think is going to really dictate for a lot of us how we schedule out moving forward.”

Simply put, Dannen and Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule are in wait-and-see mode when it comes to any scheduling beyond the next few years. Specifically, they want to see how the CFP selection committee treats September tests before locking up any more dates with fellow Power 4 schools — or old Big Eight/Big 12 peers.

“I think for Nebraska fans, anytime we play a school that we were in the Big 12 with, there’s a sense of rivalry,” Dannen continued. “The greatest years in our history were against those Big 12 schools. And so I think there is that sense of rivalry, obviously, with Oklahoma, with Colorado — but really with anyone in the Big 12. But I know (CU-Nebraska) is a game, when you get a former Big 12 partner, and you’re at home, it’s special to the fan base.”

The Big Ten’s nine-league game schedule is one hurdle, Dannen said. Another is his desire to maintain seven home dates per season as a baseline. The next five pre-conference Septembers for the Huskers stick largely to formula: one Power 4 opponent (the Buffs at home in ’24; Cincy in Indianapolis in ’25; Tennessee at home in ’26; the Vols on the road in ’27; Arizona at home in ’28) and at least two Memorial Stadium dates out of three available slots.

“The financial model is always going to be built around seven home games, so that limits your ability to go on the road in certain years,” the Nebraska AD said. “So not only do you have to have the opening, but it also has to sync with when you can be at home and when you have the ability to travel.”

Based on reported schedules, the earliest the Buffs and Huskers both have concurring open dates is the third week of September 2029. But that also seems an unlikely fit given that Nebraska is visiting Oklahoma on Sept. 15 of that year and would probably prefer a home game. CU’s non-conference slate is currently booked up for 2030 and 2031.

The Buffs and Huskers have matching open dates the third weekend of September in 2032 and in ’33. Nebraska’s only published nonconference September obligations after that are a home-and-home series with Oklahoma State on Sept. 16, 2034 (Lincoln) and Sept. 15, 2035 (Stillwater).

“We’re really on hold right now, I think, through the end of the season,” Dannen stressed. “Until … we see how the selection committee looks at nonconference games, and then we’ll kind of regroup and strategize. But (Rhule and I) haven’t talked any specifics at all on non-conference scheduling.”

He hasn’t gone into many specifics with George, either, despite a friendship that dates back to Dannen’s previous tenures as the AD at Washington (’23-’24) and Tulane (2015-23).

“He’s one of the most highly respected (administrators) in the business,” Dannen said of the CU AD. “And over the years, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to learn a lot from Rick. I think very, very highly of him.”

He thinks very, very highly of Buffs-Huskers, too.

“You’d watch the Detroit Lions game and the Dallas Cowboys game on a (Thanksgiving) Thursday and you’d watch (CU-Nebraska) on a Friday, right?” Dannen said. “And so it means something.

“Because for a lot of us, it brings back great memories — whether you watched it with your dad, or everybody went over to somebody’s house, and there were multiple families there, (or) your friends were around. And that’s how you watched the game at that time.”

Per SportsMediaWatch.com, last September’s showdown between the old Big 12/Big Eight rivals drew a reported 8.73 million eyeballs on Fox. The 2019 meeting at Folsom drew 3.45 million viewers. The 2018 game in Lincoln registered 3.394 million viewers. And if we know anything about where big-time college sports is parked, it’s that if the TV networks want something bad enough, it’ll happen.

“Obviously with Oklahoma and Tennessee on our schedule, if the SEC were to go from eight to nine (conference) games, that (could open up dates),” Dannen noted. “There are a lot of dominoes that haven’t fallen that could potentially fall that would impact how you look at scheduling going forward. Things outside of your control may arise.”

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