Nebraska gets home opener to begin Big Ten play for first time since 2017
The Big Ten unveiled its NEW slate of games for the 2024 season on Thursday afternoon, including the revised Nebraska football schedule. It features dates and matchups for the Huskers in what will be Year Two of the Matt Rhule Era – and the first year of the new 18-team conference and the first year without divisions since 2010.
And, for the first time in seven years, Nebraska football will open the conference season with a home game at Memorial Stadium.
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Nebraska will play four Big Ten home games at Memorial Stadium in 2024 and five conference games on the road – in addition to three nonconference home games to begin the season against UTEP (Aug. 31), Colorado (Sept. 7) and Northern Iowa (Sept. 14).
The Huskers' Big Ten season will then get underway on Saturday, Sept. 21 in Lincoln.
Nebraska will open conference play at home for the first time since 2017, taking on Illinois at Memorial Stadium on Sept. 21. The Huskers travel to Purdue on Sept. 28, before returning to Lincoln to host Rutgers on Oct. 5.
The Huskers will have two bye weeks during the 2024 season. The first bye week comes on Oct. 12 before they return to action with consecutive road games at Indiana (Oct. 19) and Ohio State (Oct. 26).
Nebraska opens November by squaring off against two of the league’s newcomers, starting with a Nov. 2 home game against UCLA, and the Huskers' will have their second bye week following that matchup before they travel to USC on Nov. 16.
Nebraska closes the regular season with matchups against Wisconsin in Lincoln (Nov. 23) and at Iowa (Friday, Nov. 29). The 2024 season will mark the fourth straight year Nebraska has closed the regular season with games against the Badgers and Hawkeyes.
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In June, the Big Ten initially announced opponents for all league members for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, but that schedule to be reworked after Oregon and Washington joined the league. Then, on Oct. 5, the Big Ten revealed opponents for the Huskers and the rest of the league for the 2024-2028 seasons.
At long last, however, the most crucial set of upcoming games is finally set as Rhule and the Huskers now have the Year Two slate in front of them.
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2024 Nebraska Football Schedule
Aug. 31—UTEP*
Sept. 7—Colorado*
Sept. 14—Northern Iowa*
Sept. 21—Illinois
Sept. 28—at Purdue
Oct. 5—Rutgers
Oct. 12—BYE
Oct. 19—at Indiana
Oct. 26—at Ohio State
Nov. 2—UCLA
Nov. 9—BYE
Nov. 16—at USC
Nov. 23—Wisconsin
Nov. 29—at Iowa (Friday)
*Nonconference opponents
Alberts, Huskers made push to end Nebraska's run of Big Ten road openers
In late September, during his monthly appearance on Huskers Radio Network, Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts said that he was making a push to get the Huskers a conference opener at home. Nebraska has not hosted a Big Ten opener at Memorial Stadium in six years. That streak will stop at seven years now, though, as Alberts' push came to fruition.
“That’s been brought up to the Big Ten – that perhaps we can rethink that," Alberts said of the Huskers having opened the conference season with road games in six consecutive years. "There’s a lot of nuance to scheduling. Scheduling can be hard. We thought we were close to having (a Big Ten opener at home) and then Oregon and Washington joined the conference. So we've got more work to do. We're going to be meeting in person soon and try to get at least that 2024 rotational schedule figured out."
Nebraska's last home game to open the conference slate came in September 2017 when it beat Rutgers, 27-17.
Since then, Nebraska has traveled to the opponent's stadium for the Huskers' first Big Ten game of the season in five of the last six years. The one exception? The Ireland trip against Northwestern last year, meaning the Huskers have hit the road for Game 1 of the Big Ten season in each of the last six seasons – and that includes four straight years in which the Huskers played Big Ten road games in their first game of the season. All of those were losses (on the road versus Ohio State in 2020, Illinois in 2021, Northwestern in Ireland in 2022 and Minnesota in 2023).
Nebraska has a kindred spirit in Penn State, as Alberts noted that the Nittany Lions have opened league play on the road for eight consecutive seasons. The Husker AD made sure to point out that he doesn't believe there is anything "nefarious" as to why Nebraska gets that type of slate. But did take initiative to address that with Big Ten administrators and schedule-makers and get the Huskers a home game to open league play. Evidently, it worked.
Oh, and the Nittany Lions? They are opening Big Ten play at home as well. Their Sept. 28 home game (also against Illinois, just like Nebraska's conference opener) will stop their own streak at nine years without having hosted a conference opener since they beat Rutgers (again, just like Nebraska) in 2015 at Beaver Stadium.