Huskers get tough draw inBig Ten schedule
For the second straight weekend, the Big Tenmade news without playing.
Lastweek, the conference was in the process of putting together a restart plan for football.
On Saturday, the Big Ten releaseditsschedule3.0, doing it a little bit at a time on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff pregame show. The Big Ten also took upmuch of the conversation onESPN’s“CollegeGameDay,” which had interviews with MichigancoachJimHarbaugh, Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields and Big Ten Commissioner KevinWarren.
Nice flex and a heady play as the Big Ten is about to drop off the radar until its season starts the weekend of Oct. 24.
The Southeastern Conference kicks off next week and the ACC and Big 12 get cranked up, too.
Most notable on the Big Ten’s schedule was how Nebraska will start the season: at Ohio State and home forWisconsin. Oof!
No Big Ten school made asmuch of a public fuss over the conference’s initial decision to postpone the season asNebraska. Thebrutalopening schedule against the conference’s two division winners from last season might have been a coincidence, but it did not go unnoticed.
TheHuskersalsoplayPenn State in the fourth game of the season, giving Nebraska easily the toughest cross-division games of any team in theWest Division.
Nebraska had both Ohio State and Penn State on its original nine-game, pre-pandemic conference schedule, along with Rutgers. The Big Ten used those schedules to set these schedules, dropping one of the three crossover games for each team.
Athletic director BillMoos told the Omaha-World Herald that he pushed to rework schedulesmorethoroughlyto provide competitive balance. He also suggestedhaving only division games count toward the division race.
He said he lost every argument.
“Forobvious reasons, Iwas hopingwecoulddissemblethe schedule because of unique circumstances and rebuild it to be fair for each school in the conference,” Moos told the newspaper Saturday. “I was outspoken on that, to the pointwheretheyhearditfrom me every day. The rationale was there, I didn’t think we needed to followit. Nebraska is playing five AP preseason Top 25 teams. Ohio State’s playing two.”
Nebraska has lost five straight against Ohio State, which has became a yearly rivalry since the Big Ten went to an East-West division structure.
Aloha
UCF has another Heisman Trophy contender quarterback from Hawaii.
DillonGabriel, who ended up winning the job during last season as a freshman, appears evenbetter this year. Gabriel went to the same high school as teammate McKenzie Milton, who finished in the Heisman top 10 in 2017 and ’18.
Few quarterbacks are as fearless throwing deep as Gabriel. Against Georgia Tech, he passed for 417 yards and four touchdowns, averaging10yardsanattempt and 15 yards a completion. It was a convincing victory against a Power Five team, if only a rebuilding P5 squad.
Milton is still hoping to play again after a gruesome leg injury two seasons ago. Just gettingonthefieldwould be amiraculous comeback. Butmakenomistake, Gabriel is the man at UCF and the Knights have a team that could again make a case for somethingmore than just an American Athletic Conference championship trophy.
The17th-rankedHurricanes unleashed their newoffense on No. 18 Louisville and pulled away for a victory..
Around the country
Navy, which started the season being outscored 79-3, scored the last 27 points of the game to beat Tulane on a last-second field goal. The TridentTrophyGame(Green Wave vs. Midshipmen) has producedsomewildresultsin recent years. The AAC rivals have split the last four games by a combined total of nine points. ... Top-notchdebutby Boston College’s newcoach ( Jeff Hafley) and new quarterback (Phil Jurkovec). The Eagles rolled over Duke.