Oklahoma football: Nebraska trying to get out of 2021 game at OU

The Oklahoma football rivalry with Nebraska has been in hiatus for 11 years.

The rivalry is scheduled to be renewed in 2021 and is one of the highly anticipated games on the Sooners 2021 schedule.

There are reports circulating, however, that Nebraska is “trying to get out of playing Oklahoma on Sept. 18.”

Sports Illustrated and other media sources are reacting to a Twitter message put out by Stadium’s Brett McMurphy, who said the Cornhuskers are trying to get out this fall’s game in Norman and “have contacted other schools to play in Lincoln on that date,”

Adam Rittenberg of ESPN reported that sources have told the Lincoln Journal Star that Nebraska officials are looking into the “feasibility of the move.”

Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione responded to McMurphy’s tweet with one of his own, stating:

“We’ve been looking to celebrating these two storied programs and have collaborated on various aspects of what promised to be a special weekend.

“We fully expect and intend to play the game as it is scheduled,” Castiglione wrote.

Oklahoma and Nebraska have played 86 games all-time. The two teams met annually from 1928 to 1997. After that, the Big 12 was structured into two divisions, with Nebraska in the North Division and OU in the South, and the teams did not play every year.

Oklahoma leads the all-time series 45-38-3. The two teams last played in the 2010 Big 12 championship game, won by OU 23-20. After that, Nebraska left the Big 12 to become members of the Big Ten.

In 2012, Castiglione and then-Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne agreed to a home-and-home series in 2021 and 2022, with the 2021 game to be played in Norman and in 2022 the scene would shift to Nebraska. In 2016, the two schools agreed to schedule two more games: at Oklahoma in 2029 and in Lincoln in 2030.

The celebration Castiglione referred to in his Twitter message is the 50th anniversary of the classic “Game of the Century,” when No. 1 Nebraska beat No. 2 Oklahoma 35-31 on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25, 1971.

Nebraska officials are not commenting on this report or the potential reason(s) behind it. If it is true, however, it is likely that the Cornhuskers did not want to play the Sooners, a probable top-five team, on OU’s home field in the nonconference portion of the schedule.