Nebraska Football: What playing outside of Big Ten could look like

Scott Frost said on Monday that Nebraska football was open to playing outside of the Big Ten this fall if need be.

It wasn’t looking good for the Big Ten to have college football this fall over the weekend, as the presidents of the conference met to discuss the fate of the sport. It was looking as though the college football season would be canceled in the conference, but a decision has still not been made.

If the Big Ten did opt to cancel its football season, the Nebraska Cornhuskers are still interested in playing a season even if they have to do so as an independent program.

"“We’re a proud member of the Big Ten,” Frost said during a Zoom teleconference with reporters. “We want to play a Big Ten schedule. I think the only reason we would look at any other options is if for some reason the Big Ten wasn’t playing and only a handful of teams from the Big Ten wanted to continue playing. I think if that’s the case, I think we’re prepared to look at any and all options.”-Via ESPN"

Frost mentioned that being on campus in Lincoln was the safest place for his players to be right now because sending them home could put them in close contact with older family members who are at higher risk.

So, what happens if Nebraska football has to play outside of the Big Ten?

This would be interesting, to say the least and it’s something that I doubt happens. The other Big Ten programs appear adamant that they want to play this season and at the end of the day, as sad of a statement as this is to make, money talks.

Nebraska and the other Big Ten universities would lose a lot of money if there’s no season this fall. Money is always going to be the most important thing to these programs.

If the Cornhuskers have to go on their own, it could be a situation like Notre Dame where they’re forced to find another conference to hook onto for this season only. The Fighting Irish joined the ACC for the 2020 season, so perhaps  the Huskers would end up temporarily rejoining the Big XII, which could be a nice stroll down memory lane.

Another scenario is that maybe the Huskers could play the other schools from the Big Ten who do want to play and if there are enough, they could still play conference-only games. If there aren’t enough, maybe they play each school twice.

Both Ryan Day of Ohio State and James Franklin of Penn State have made it known that they’d like to take the field this season.

It’s honestly up in the air what happens this season because there’s still so much we don’t know about this virus. Nebraska hasn’t been as badly hit with coronavirus as many other Midwestern states have.

At this point, who knows what’s going to happen this fall? Who knows if college football will take place or if it’ll get pushed back a few weeks or even a few months? The unknown is scary, but that’s all we can do through this pandemic.