Don’t expect Nebraska and Oklahoma to play again anytime soon in football.
If the Huskers and Sooners don’t meet this December in the Big 12 championship game, in fact, that may be it until — years down the road — some opportunistic bowl game pairs the former rival programs.
OU coach Bob Stoops said Sunday, while visiting the College World Series to watch the Oklahoma baseball team, that it’s “not realistic” to schedule Nebraska out of conference after the Huskers leave for the Big Ten in 2011.
“Yeah, we’ll stick them in between Cincinnati and Florida State,” Stoops said. “If we had a nonconference schedule like a lot of other teams, it’d be awesome, but we don’t. We’d have to make some serious adjustments in our schedule.”
Oklahoma has scheduled future series against Notre Dame, Ohio State and LSU, among others, Stoops said. Nebraska has committed to similar matchups against UCLA, Miami and Tennessee.
Stoops said he spoke with NU coach Bo Pelini after the Huskers’ June 11 announcement that they would leave the Big 12 after one more season of play. According to Stoops, he and Pelini agree that the impact of conference-realignment moves won’t be known for several years.
“He said people want to know if it’s a good thing,” Stoops said. “Like he said, talk to me in five years and we’ll see if it’s all worked out for everybody.
“We’ll see. No one knows. You don’t know what the impact will be for them in five years. You don’t know what it’ll be for us in five years. Obviously, we still have a very strong product.”
In a smaller Big 12, the league looks unlikely to continue its championship game after 2010. Stoops, at OU since 1999, said he would like to keep it intact. Oklahoma has played in seven conference title games and for four national championships under Stoops.
He was intrigued by the speculation that Oklahoma might move to the Pac-10 with five other Big 12 teams. In the end, only Colorado jumped, though future realignment, of course, remains a possibility.
“I thought it was exciting,” Stoops said. “I just thought all of it was a win-win, but we’ve moved this way and I’m not at all complaining.”
Contact the writer:
402-473-9587, mitch.sherman@owh.com
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