Nebraska football not getting any new conference mates anytime soon

Rumors about the Big Ten adding even more teams in the very near future aren’t going away anytime soon. But according to new commissioner Tony Petitti, he’s not even close to working on bringing in any new teams to try and push Nebraska football down the ladder.

Petitti kicked off Big Ten Media Days by discussing a wide range of subjects. Still, one of the longer discussions in his 30-minute appearance was about whether or not Nebraska football fans should expect to see new conference opponents in the near future.

While Petitti wouldn’t totally rule out more expansion, he made it clear it’s not on his table now. In fact, from his comments during his short appearance, it’s clear adding USC and UCLA has been an exhausting experience.

Petitti talked about how hard Big Ten personnel have worked on making sure that every team in the conference is able to have a fair schedule that will also see every team play each other at least once every four years.

Nebraska football not getting new conference rivals

Rumors about Washington and Oregon joining the Big Ten have been running rampant over the last few weeks. However, Petitti tried to tamp those rumors down by saying that he “hasn’t been directed” to start looking at adding any other teams.

That obviously doesn’t mean that it won’t happen eventually. However, it didn’t feel like Petitti was avoiding the question, even if he also didn’t completely rule it out.

It felt as though any expansion talk at this point is very, very premature. That of course has been the pattern over the last few years. There’s a major shift in the landscape, then things calm down a bit.

With the conference in the “calming down” stage, that’s a good thing for Nebraska football. 2024 is going to be hard enough, there’s no need to be preparing for two new teams for 2025 or 2026 too.