What had been all but expected became official on Friday, as Nebraska announced that next Wednesday’s home game vs. Penn State had been postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the Husker program.
As a result, NU will end the month of January having played just two games, the last of which coming on Jan. 10.
It will also have played only one game over 32 days, assuming it returns to action at Michigan State on Feb. 3, as expected.
The news also makes an already busy February and early March even more complicated for Nebraska to figure out how to make up now six postponed games.
Beginning Feb. 3 at MSU, the Huskers will have to play a whopping 15 contests in just 34 days before starting the Big Ten Tournament on March. 10.
So how is that going to work?
Nothing has been officially announced as to what the remainder of NU’s schedule will look like over the next six weeks.
But HuskerOnline.com has heard from two sources close to the situation that Nebraska could essentially play a game every third day in February and through the first week of March.
However, even that plan wouldn’t get all 15 remaining games in before the currently scheduled start of the conference tournament in Indianapolis.
One way to potentially pack even more games into that window would be to stacking together two straight games vs. some of NU’s double-play opponents with two games in three days or even playing back-to-back on consecutive days.
Of the six postponements so far, five were games vs. teams the Huskers were to play twice this season – Minnesota, Penn State, Maryland, Purdue, and Illinois.
The only single-play matchup that has been postponed so far was last Sunday’s game at Iowa.
The Big Ten will undoubtedly have to shuffle the current schedule around over the next couple of weeks to try and make playing all of those games as logistically feasible as possible.
There has even been some talk of delaying or even canceling the conference tournament altogether to create an extra week to make up postponed games.
As it stands, Nebraska will be in for a serious grind over the next six weeks.
