Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen believes that college football will have a 24-team playoff by next season's winter. While the move isn’t official yet, the Huskers are acting as though it is, including shifting their 2027 schedule and adding another Power 4 program.
"Our schedule will change next year," Dannen said Tuesday during a Sports Nightly appearance. "We've talked to all of our nonconference opponents and told them that we're going to end up dropping a game and picking up a Power Four game. And we may need you to move weeks. The game in Kansas City may not be Miami of Ohio when it's all said and done."
The idea that Nebraska's next game in Arrowhead Stadium could be a Power 4 opponent instead of a middle-of-the-road MAC team should make everyone happier, especially the people running Arrowhead, who desperately want a sellout.
Of course, Nebraska isn’t pulling the trigger on the 10th Power 4 team because, for now, the rule that Dannen thinks will be official isn’t in place. Five schools in the conference won't have a 10th Power Four game next year. Unless they are all working the phones right now, the Big Ten or whoever oversees that kind of rule might give member schools a one-year waiver.
Nebraska football could replace Miami Ohio at Arrowhead as Troy Dannen pursues Power 4 opponent
The 24-team College Football Playoff field has been “imminent” for over a month now. The longer it takes to go from imminent to official, the harder it will be for any school to honor a rule that forces it to shift its schedule.
Still, Dannen is working hard as though the 10 Power 4 program rule were already in place.
"So the Big Ten is working through that right now. I've had three or four conversations about different opponents. And it's not necessarily just people that don't have the 10th Power Four game. There may be some wheeling and dealing to get other matchups set, freeing someone else up and putting that together."
Dannen also hopes to flesh all of this out quickly. Ideally, he said, he’d like to have everything settled by Thanksgiving weekend.
His preference for one of Nebraska’s “home” games in Kansas City adds another layer of difficulty to the whole thing.
"And so we had eight home games. One of those we took to Kansas City because the gate, and the extra of being a larger venue, was going to help us meet the bottom line financially. But I think all bets are off right now. I still expect to have eight home games, and we still need to meet our budget. But there's a buyout that's going to have to happen because of an opponent, and someone that's coming in here is probably not going to want to come in here as a one-off. It may be the front end of a home-and-home."
All of this depends on ESPN and the conferences finally crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s on an agreement that all sides claimed was just about there. Nebraska and everyone else in the Power 4 conferences need to, at some point, let their presidents know there’s a drop-dead date for 2027 that might not even be reflected in the talks.
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