The University of Nebraska football team has added a non-conference game to its 2024 schedule. Northern Iowa will make the trip to Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. This will be the first time these two teams have played on the football field. According to a report from FBSchedules, Northern Iowa will be paid $600,000 for the game. UNI is the third and final non-conference opponent scheduled for the 2024 season. The Panthers join UTEP and Colorado as the other two schools currently under contract.
Northern Iowa is a member of the Missouri Valley Conference and currently plays at the FCS level. I can’t say that I’m a fan of this move. I have nothing against the Panthers or their program, but I’m sick and tired of Power 5 schools scheduling FCS opponents rather than another Power 5 school simply to try and ease a path to a bowl game. There has to be a way to incentivize the top programs to play one another during the non-conference season, and I don’t have any ideas on how to do that. We can’t even get every major conference to play the same number of conference games, so I don’t see a path to changing non-conference scheduling. Teams will continue to schedule opponents from other divisions of football.
Take a look at the 2022 Husker schedule below.