Exit UCLA Rumors, Enter Penn State

A few weeks ago, the Lincoln Journal-Star reported that Nebraska was in discussions with UCLA for future games. Well, now that UCLA and Kansas State have agreed to a series, it looks like those plans might be off. But now, Penn State associate AD Fran Gartner tells the Lincoln Journal-Star that they are in discussions with Nebraska for another series after 2011. This looks like a pretty good series, except that it's very unlikely that JoePa will be the head coach of the Lions by then. The history of coaches following legends (see Oklahoma following Barry Switzer, Alabama following Bear Bryant, etc.) isn't great, so it will be interesting to see what kind of program Penn State is in at that time.

Speaking of JoePa (thanks AJ for the photo), I've seen a lot of Husker fans praising Steve Pederson for refusing to move the Nebraska-Louisiana Tech game to Sunday evening of Labor Day weekend for TV. Frankly, that was an easy call. Looking at the Big XII schedule for Labor Day weekend, the "best" games even remotely interesting for TV are Nebraska-La. Tech, Oklahoma-UAB, and Texas Tech-SMU. Maybe Texas-North Texas, just because of the Bovine's trophy. Not a whole lot to choose from. So Pederson could pretty easily guess that one of the Big XII's TV partners would grab this game; it was more of a question of when rather than if. And sure enough, FSN selected the game for an afternoon broadcast after TBS grabbed Oklahoma-UAB for that evening.

Update: June 19, 2006
Nebraska and UCLA have announced a 2 game series. Nebraska will play at UCLA in 2012 and UCLA will come to Lincoln in 2013.