It appeared pretty clear when the new schedule was released on Saturday morning that the B1G was repaying Nebraska for its response to the initial postponement to the 2020 fall football season. The Huskers are scheduled to open the season against Ohio State on the road, then will host Wisconsin in Week 2 and will then play Penn State on Nov. 14.

Nebraska will play three teams ranked that were ranked in the Associated Press top 25 in its first four contests this fall. And athletic director Bill Moos isn’t that happy about it.

Moos was hoping the B1G would create more balanced schedules among the league’s 14 teams. Clearly, that didn’t happen.

“For obvious reasons, I was hoping we could dissemble the schedule because of unique circumstances and rebuild it to be fair for each school in the conference,” Moos said, according to Sam McKewon of the Omaha World-Herald. “I was outspoken on that, to the point where they heard it from me every day. The rationale was there, I didn’t think we needed to follow it. Nebraska is playing five AP preseason top 25 teams. Ohio State’s playing two.

“I’m sure my friend (and Ohio State Athletic Director) Gene Smith is smiling today. His friend Bill Moos is not. I’ve got a good football team with a great football coach that deserves a break here or there to start getting back on track to being a contender in the Big Ten West.”

When the season was initially postponed, Nebraska was the most vocal about its disappointment, saying it would continue to explore options to compete in the fall. Many interpreted that incorrectly, believing the Huskers were threatening to leave the conference.

That was never the case.

Now, Nebraska will pay for its perceived “sins” with arguably the toughest B1G schedule of the 14 teams in the conference.

“I think a little more thought could have been put into pieces of this, and it wasn’t,” Moos said. “I don’t believe there’d be Big Ten football without Nebraska’s persistence in the whole process, all the way back to voluntary workouts. I harped on that until we got it.”