Big Ten: Iowa, Nebraska both asked to change football date

IOWA CITY - It's a Nebraska tradition to play football the Friday after Thanksgiving, but Iowa officials wanted to co-op it as well.

Mark Rudner, the Big Ten's associate commissioner for television administration, said both Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta and Nebraska Athletics Director Tom Osborne  requested to move the schools' regular-season finale this year from Saturday, Nov. 26 to Friday, Nov. 25.

"We heard from Tom and we heard from Gary almost with a day of each other," said Rudner, who is in charge of Big Ten scheduling. "Apparently they had been talking, and the coaches had been talking.

"The first thing we had to do was find out if that game did move from Saturday to Friday what the iimpact on our media partners would be, especially ESPN/ABC. When we talked to ESPN/ABC, they were all for it. Once we had that information because those were approved schedules, Iowa - because Nebraska wasn't at the table but Tom was there - made a recommendation to their colleagues, the other athletic directors, to move it and that was approved."

The Big Ten Conference Administrators Council approved the game change in Feburary. The teams will meet in the regular-season finale in Lincoln, Neb., this year and in Iowa City in 2012.

Nebraska, which joins the Big Ten this fall, has played on the Friday after Thanksgiving every year since 1990. The Cornhuskers played Oklahoma on that day from 1990 through 1995 and then Colorado from 1996 through 2010.  Iowa and Nebraska also played on Thanksgiving Day from 1891 through 1898.

The game time has not been set, Rudner said, and no other Big Ten games will move from Saturday to Friday this year.

"It won't be at night. It'll be sometime during the day," he said. "I haven't really heard what the time will be." 

Nebraska holds a 26-12-3 series lead. The teams last met in 2000.