Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen has weighed in on Nebraska being featured among a slate of Friday Night Football games this fall.
“We can be upset about it all we want but we’re cashing a pretty large check from our television contract every year—this is the price of that check,” Dannen said. “In order to fund what we want to do, you end up with a Friday night game here and there.”
Dannen appeared on Sports Nightly on Wednesday, the Huskers Radio Network’s weeknight show that airs on affiliates across the state of Nebraska, including KLIN Radio in Lincoln. He acknowledged the fact that Friday’s are typically not a college football day.
“I know Friday night games cause a lot of heartburn, for a lot of reasons,” Dannen said. “We think of high school football, just the logistics of Friday night game in the middle of a college campus. There are gonna be a lot of challenges along with it.
“But I think the ability to put the Huskers in that stadium and our crowd in the national limelight for a night game is … well worth the challenges that lie ahead with it.”
Nebraska will host Illinois on Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. CDT. This will be the first non-Black Friday, weekday game in Memorial Stadium since the Huskers hosted Rice on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001.
“Believe it or not, the volleyball event last year might have been a good dry run for us and what it would look like during the week and how the impact would be,” Dannen said. “[It’s] a challenge for our operations crew, but it’s gonna be a great environment.
“I love the fact that people around the country are just gonna be focused on us that night watching a game in Memorial Stadium.”