Pete Thamel: Nebraska canceled home-and-home with Tennessee because it 'just didn't want to play this series'

When Nebraska decided to cancel the home-and-home series against Tennessee, the Cornhuskers cited renovations to Memorial Stadium – and the ensuing reduced capacity – as a key reason. But ESPN’s Pete Thamel pointed out the role the 12-team College Football Playoff played in the move.

Nebraska and Tennessee were set to begin their series in 2026 before the cancellation. During that time, Memorial Stadium will be down roughly 20% capacity, Huskers athletics director Troy Dannen said. That’s why the program approached Tennessee about potentially postponing again.

However, Thamel said Nebraska likely didn’t want to play the series with the new-look CFP and how the committee weighed strength of schedule in the first year of the 12-team bracket. That’s what he thought sparked the decision, and flipping the two games likely couldn’t happen with the schedules in place.

“Tennessee’s home schedule probably wouldn’t afford that flip,” Thamel said on the College GameDay podcast. “It probably doesn’t have the room for that flip, I would guess, Rece. But I think this just comes down to Nebraska just didn’t want to play this series. The one piece of empirical evidence we have of this 12-team Playoff indicates murky rewards for a tough non-conference schedule. That’s the data set we’re dealing with right now.

“Now, look, you and I have said it many times on this podcast. We’re not biased toward teams, we are not biased towards leagues. But we really like good games. USC-Utah Valley is not what gets us excited. We want teams to play good games, and I don’t think that shows any particular bias other than we are fans at heart and we like watching great college football. Nebraska-Bowling Green … is not great college football. But I can’t fault the strategy with the evidence we have.”

Nebraska had already added an eighth home game in 2027 against Miami (OH) to help make up for the revenue the school will lose. Dannen also said the Huskers had an FCS opening, which is why Northern Iowa is now on the schedule.

But the financial impact of playing the series against Tennessee with a reduced capacity was the biggest reason for canceling the series, Dannen told HuskerOnline’s Sean Callahan and Steven Sipple on HuskerOnline Headlines. He called it a “long-term” decision.

“It’s really tied to the stadium renovation project,” Dannen said. “As months have gone on and we’ve really gotten our plans for what we want to do, it’s become more and more obvious that we were going to be down capacity in ’27, and there’s just no way around it. So from a financial standpoint, the idea of playing seven games at a 20% reduced capacity in 2027 was going to be a real financial killer. And right now, as we try to implement the revenue-share model and everything else, eyes first and foremost, are focused on, are we going to be able to continue to fund ourselves? We looked and said, we need eight games that year with the stadium renovation.

“We approached Tennessee and said, hey, are you willing to push this back again? I know we already did it. But we did it at your request last time, so you can play that game at the racetrack. But could you push it back for us to accommodate this? They couldn’t, which I understand. No harm there. This was our decision and our call. If they couldn’t push it back and delay it, we’d just cancel the series.”