Nebraska AD Troy Dannen pushes back on hosting future Friday night games
Nebraska AD Troy Dannen is not thrilled about the idea of hosting future Friday night games at Memorial Stadium. In fact, Dannen says he sent a letter to the Big Ten offices illustrating why he wants the Huskers taken off the Friday night host list in the future.
“I sent a letter yesterday to the (Big Ten) commissioner, with the blessing of the (university) president and the chancellor, formally requesting not to host Friday games outside of Thanksgiving every other year – the game with Iowa,” Dannen said during his monthly interview for the Huskers Radio Network. “Just because of the size of the stadium and the locale, I don’t think we want to be canceling in-person classes. I’m sure the students didn’t mind. But at the end of the day the more we can avoid that I think the better off everybody will be.”
Dannen’s comments come shortly after Michigan AD Warde Manuel went public with his bold comments that Michigan will not entertain hosting Friday night games. While Dannen did not call out Manuel by name, he specifically referenced not liking the idea of other ADs being able to lay “their foot down” when it comes to Friday games.
If that’s how things work in the B1G, Dannen believes the Huskers “should be in that same position” to decide whether or not they host Friday games:
“So if it happens again, it happens again. I don’t like seeing other athletic directors in the league saying, ‘By golly, we will not do that’ and laying their foot down. I’m not sure any institution should have the unilateral ability to do that,” Dannen claimed. “But if we do, I raised my hand with the commissioner and said Nebraska should be in that same position with 90,000 fans and the proximity we have to campus.”
It will be interesting to see how this situation develops and what the B1G ultimately decides. The conference has made it clear it wants to continue playing games on Friday night under the new media rights deal, but that could become a situation if many prominent programs make it clear they will not host Friday night games.
