I’ll be just fine with Iowa and Nebraska not playing on Black Friday
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – We should know by now that nothing in big-time college football is sacred or protected anymore.
Except for Notre Dame still having a national television contract despite probably being the third best college football team in Indiana this year behind Indiana and Purdue.
The news on Tuesday was huge if you’re into college football schedules and planning ahead three and four years in advance.
The Big Ten conference released league football schedules for 2020-21 and the big change is the Hawkeyes won’t face Nebraska in their season finale.
Iowa instead will face Wisconsin in the regular-season finale in both 2020 and 2021.
The future of any Black Friday games will need to be addressed by the Big Ten. On the schedules released Tuesday, all Big Ten finales, much to the dismay of Nebraska fans and media members, are scheduled for the last Saturday of the season.
Iowa has closed each season since 2011 against Nebraska on Black Friday in the annual Heroes Games.
“It’s just a rotational thing, there’ no conspiracy,” Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta said to the media on Tuesday.
But try telling that to Nebraska fans who are used to watching the Cornhuskers play on Black Friday as a long-standing tradition dating back to when Nebraska was a member of the Big Eight Conference and would face Colorado on the day after Thanksgiving.
The reaction on Twitter was swift as Nebraska fans and media members blasted the new schedules, saying that playing on Black Friday is part of Nebraska’s tradition and identity. They also pleaded for Nebraska athletic director Shawn Eichorst to fight the decision before learning that Eichorst reportedly was in favor of not playing on Black Friday.
Eichorst wasn't very popular before this decision, but now he is public enemy No. 1 in Nebraska for ending one of the few things that makes Nebraska football unique these days.
The problem is the Big Eight is long gone and so is Nebraska’s dominance in football. The Cornhuskers are just another team in the Big Ten at this stage.
They’ll do what the conference says, and it doesn’t matter if they like it or not.
And who knows, the Big Ten might ultimately decide to honor Nebraska's Black Friday tradition. Those decisions still have to be made.
But the Cornhuskers aren't entitled to play on Black Friday just because they've done it for so long.
Times change, along with traditions.
Some have suggested that the Big Ten by matching Iowa against Wisconsin has sent a message that the road to the West Division title now goes through those two programs, and that Nebraska is just another program.
I'm not sure about that, but Iowa and Wisconsin both have won at least one West Division title, while Nebraska hasn't.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz seems to have gotten used to and comfortable with playing on Black Friday. Maybe it's because Iowa has won three of the last four games against Nebraska, including a 40-10 drubbing last season at Kinnick Stadium.
“We'll play them as they come,” Ferentz said Tuesday. “Personally, I like playing on Black Friday. It's great for a lot of reasons. One selfish reason that ties into why I was against starting camp in July. It's not like I'm going anywhere. I haven't left Iowa other than recruiting and stuff like that. But my vacation was in my backyard this year, so I was here in July anyway. Didn't affect my life a heck of a lot.
“But believe it or not, that little window of Friday, especially when you play at home, guys can walk out of here Friday before 6 p.m., and the ones that live locally getting to home and maybe eat some turkey with their family and stuff like that. Stuff they used to do ten years ago and in college. So selfishly I think that's another reason it's a pretty good deal.”
Me personally, I really don’t care when Iowa’s regular-season ends or who it ends against, although, the 1984 regular-season finale at Hawaii is certainly a tradition I could get used to.
It’ll probably be nice not having to rush to a game the morning after Thanksgiving feeling tired, bloated and guilty over how much I just consumed the previous day without moving anything besides my mouth.
I also consider Wisconsin a more intriguing matchup and a bigger rival than Nebraska for lots of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Barry Alvarez used the Iowa blueprint under Hayden Fry to rebuild the Wisconsin program in the early 1990s, and that he hired away two of Fry’s top assistants coaches – Dan McCarney and Bernie Wyatt – to help him do it.
Nebraska fans will just have to get used to living in a new world that is dominated by television revenue and with people who barely remember or care about what happened before the year 2000.
Barta didn’t rule out the possibility of playing Wisconsin on Black Friday.
But this argument that the Big Ten owes it to Nebraska to keep its Black Friday tradition alive is ridiculous. The Big Ten doesn’t owe Nebraska anything besides the big, fact check it writes every year for television revenue.
Nobody forced Nebraska to join the Big Ten in 2011. It bolted from the Texas-and-Oklahoma dominated Big 12 for greener pastures in the Big Ten.
Nebraska found the greener pastures, but not without paying a price.
None of Iowa's three Black Friday home games against Nebraska have sold out; the Hawkeyes have averaged 68,838 fans at home against Nebraska. So the game has been a success, but not an overwhelming success.
Tuesday’s announcement by the Big Ten is yet another example that change is the way of the future.
The Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament will be played at Madison Square in New York City in March for the first time after being held in Washington D.C. last season for the first time.
Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany also has pushed for Friday night football games, but has been met with strong resistance from some of the conference schools.
The fact that Delany even endorsed it is a dramatic step and shows that anything is possible in this new era of change.
Even Black Friday without Nebraska.