The game would undoubtedly please Husker fans, and there would be plenty of storylines.
Two of college football’s most prestigious programs squaring off in one of the nation’s most illustrious stadiums before some of the nation’s most devout fans.
Bo Pelini would be facing the tall task of taking on his alma mater.
The game, of course, is Ohio State vs. Nebraska. It’s the game Husker fans want most, according to a recent poll done by the athletic department.
Unfortunately for Husker Nation, making the game happen isn’t that simple.
Scheduling a football team’s non-conference schedule is no small feat. Those in charge of making it happen must balance a number of factors when deciding which teams to play.
For Nebraska, the man in charge of this task is Jeff Jamrog.
Jamrog serves as NU’s athletic director for football. A walk-on defensive end for the Huskers from 1983 to 1987, Jamrog was an assistant coach under Frank Solich for four years and also was the head coach at Minnesota State-Mankato from 2004 to 2007.
He returned to the program with the hiring of Pelini and oversees everything from travel to budget to strength training and compliance.
His work with non-conference scheduling, though, can require quite a bit of his time. Negotiations can take several months and vary with every school.
“It’s a tedious process of talking to multiple schools and touching base with them,” Jamrog said. “It takes a long time. You’ve just got to see what people are willing to do.”
Each school takes a different approach to scheduling non-conference foes. Several Big 12 schools tend to take on a light load of those so-called “creampuff” teams from smaller conferences in the interest of playing four relatively easy games to prepare for the Big 12 season.
Kansas, for example, used an easy non-conference schedule as a springboard for its breakout 2007 season. The Jayhawks faced Central Michigan, Southeast Louisiana, Toledo and Florida International and won each game by an average of 47 points en route to a 12-1 season.
Excluding bowl games, Texas Tech hasn’t played a non-conference game against a team from one of the five other BCS conferences since 2003.
Jamrog has a different vision for how non-conference scheduling should be.
“We want to play a BCS team every year,” he said. “There are some teams in our league that will not play a BCS team, but we want a competitive schedule for our fans and our football team.”
Another must for Nebraska when arranging its schedule is the presence of seven home games.
According to Nancy Kenny, NU’s associate athletic director and chief financial officer, each sellout home game brings in around $5 million in revenue. Because the athletic department operates on a budget of $74.3 million, maximizing the team’s home schedule each year is a big necessity.
“We always want to play at least seven home games here,” athletic director Tom Osborne said.
When Jamrog took over in 2008, he faced one significant road block to setting up NU’s non-conference schedule the right way: Much of it was already done.
The Huskers’ schedules from 2008 to 2010 had already been agreed upon, giving him little room to improve plans for the near future.
So Jamrog got to work, striking deals with three FBS (formerly Division-IA) schools in his first year as football A.D.
“The schedule for this year and next year was pretty well-set when Bo and his staff came,” Osborne said. “Jeff has made some pretty significant strides, though, in upgrading the schedule beyond 2010.”
Jamrog and Osborne agreed to deals with Fresno State and Wyoming for series that start in 2011. They also landed a marquee home-and-home matchup with Miami for 2014 and 2015.
NU still has at least one home game to plan from 2011 on, and Jamrog said he hopes to have some game announcements in the next few months.
One matchup may have already leaked. On Aug. 25, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported that NU is currently in talks with Syracuse for a future series. Jamrog declined to comment on that report.
“We’re looking to get more accomplished this year and fill up, really, until 2015,” he said.
But what exactly is NU looking to fill up on? Like with any negotiation situation, the price of doing business has Jamrog rethinking what the correct path is to scheduling.
When the NCAA expanded regular seasons to 12 games in 2005, football programs scrambled to fill up that final spot on their schedules. They looked to the lesser conferences, like Conference USA and the Sun Belt, to fill the void.
This need for low-quality Division-I opponents gave the lesser teams significant leverage, and they turned that simple supply and demand into more guaranteed money for road games.
NU has traditionally utilized its prestige to schedule one-game arrangements in which opponents came to Lincoln once. Osborne said those teams now want more in return.
“They’re asking for guarantees of as much as a million dollars to come here if we don’t go there,” he said. “As a result, we’re looking more and more at schools that are a little more competitive that might settle for two visits here and one there.”
The Daily Nebraskan acquired contracts for 10 agreements NU’s athletic department made for non-conference games with other schools, and the prices are indeed steep for getting mid-major teams to come to Memorial Stadium.
This year, Nebraska paid its three Sun Belt Conference opponents a total of $2.1 million for home games in Lincoln. Each agreement was for one game, and all were arranged by former football athletic director Tim Cassidy and signed off on by former athletic director Steve Peterson in 2006 and 2007.
According to Jamrog, those deals are practically bargains compared to what teams are asking today.
“There’s a fine line, and it’s kind of been ridiculous lately,” he said. “In some cases, if it’s too much, we’re just going to move on to the next opponent.”
Jamrog doesn’t operate under a set budget when planning non-conference games, and Kenny said most deals are dictated by the nationwide trends in guaranteed payments.
“We pay the going rate, and that’s really increased over the past few years and continues to trend up,” Kenny said. “They do the best they can, and Jeff does a very good job.”
Though NU has agreed to pay as much as $800,000 for a game – a 2008 game with San Jose State – other schools have forked over even more money for these lower-level teams.
In the Sun Belt, for example, Arkansas State is reportedly going to receive $1 million for its game with Auburn next year, and Florida Atlantic earned $900,000 for a game at Texas last season.
“Obviously we have standards that have to be met, and we have bills to pay, and that’s one way to securing the revenue to pay those bills,” Sun Belt commissioner Wright Waters said. “Nebraska can’t afford to give up a home game, and our schools can’t afford to pay them the net. It’s an economic issue.”
Mid-level teams know there’s often more money to be had by backing out of a prior agreement and seeking a new, higher-paying opponent. For that reason, back-out stipulations are becoming more prevalent in non-conference contracts.
“You want to make it significant enough – and we’ve upped it since we got here – so a team doesn’t look at it as all about money,” Jamrog said. “It’s a commitment, and we’d like to stick with it.”
Though most of NU’s past contracts included a $500,000 buyout agreement, Jamrog and Osborne increased the cost to $800,000 for their deal with Miami and added a $1 million buyout for the Wyoming contract.
The high price of doing business with smaller schools caused Jamrog to pursue Miami and Wyoming, and he said going after teams that are more competitive and reasonably priced will likely be the plan for the near future.
“We want to be budget conscious and do the right thing and get teams in here that are quality football teams,” he said. “Hopefully we can do it in a manner in which we have fiscal responsibility.”
Coming to a deal with these schools is often simpler, he said, because knowing the deal will be a home-and-home arrangement eliminates much of the negotiating. All that’s left to decide is where and when.
The value of facing these schools goes beyond monetary standards, as well. Coming to agreements that force NU to play road games across the country benefit both recruiting and the program’s fan base.
Next year, Nebraska will head north to Seattle to face Washington. The Huskers-Huskies matchup will give coaches a chance to show off their program to high school prospects in the region and build upon a recruiting pipeline that already gave NU Oregon native Ndamukong Suh.
Jamrog said trips to Fresno State and Wyoming will also give NU a chance to play in front of faraway fans and boosters.
“That’s a big part about some of it,” he said. “A lot of our boosters and supporters are from western Nebraska, and for them it’s actually going to be easier to drive to Laramie (Wyo.) than to Lincoln.”
Though there’s much to consider when reaching non-conference agreements, in the end, Jamrog and Osborne want to please Husker fans.
“The main thing we’re looking at is games that would be attractive to our fans,” Osborne said. “That’s why we’ve tried to schedule and do what we possibly can, and we’re still working on it.”
So what did Jamrog have to say about a potential showdown with Ohio State down the road?
“Bo is not afraid to schedule difficult opponents,” he said. “It’s a possibility.”
maxolson@dailynebraskan.com
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