Nebraska Football: Looks like there will be a season in 2020 after all

Nebraska football is going to take place this fall after the Big Ten made the decision to play after previously postponing the season until 2021.

It was a gut wrenching announcement when the Big Ten decided they would forego playing fall sports and instead hope for improvement with the COVID-19 virus that would allow them to play fall sports in the spring instead. Nebraska Cornhuskers fans were devastated by the news, as Lincoln thrives off of their football team, whether they’re good or bad.

Well, after a lot of pushback from players, coaches, parents, and the talking heads, the Big Ten reopened the discussion and now they will resume their season on October 24th.

"The Big Ten will require student-athletes, coaches, trainers and other individuals that are on the field for all practices and games to undergo daily antigen testing. Test results must be completed and recorded prior to each practice or game. Student-athletes who test positive for the coronavirus through point of contact (POC) daily testing would require a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to confirm the result of the POC test."

A schedule hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s been reported that teams will play an 8-game schedule over a 9-week period of time. This doesn’t leave much room for error should an outbreak occur amongst one of the teams, but that’ll be handled if things come to that I guess.

Nebraska football got their wish and the Cornhuskers will get to take the field this fall.

Nebraska was the most vocal about the postponement of the season and as a result, received a lot of backlash. Scott Frost really rubbed people the wrong way when he brought up how he and the Huskers were looking at potentially playing outside of the Big Ten this year instead. That didn’t go over in the media or in the Big Ten, as Kevin Warren made it clear if Nebraska tried to do so, then they’d no longer be in the conference.

Fortunately, Nebraska didn’t step outside of their conference and now they’ll get to play alongside the rest of their Big Ten foes. It’s going to be tough for the Cornhuskers to really have any shot at success due to how stacked their conference is, but having football back in Lincoln is crucial for that community, which depends heavily on Nebraska football to help with their businesses.

As of now, it looks like just football will be returning, which makes sense considering it’s the biggest draw (though I’d like to see volleyball return too, but I get it’s more difficult with it being held indoors). Hopefully the testing process goes according to plan and the season can be held safely.

Go Big Red!