Just a handful of years down the road, an old and highly-underrated Big 8/Big 12 rivalry will be renewed.
In a joint press releases, Colorado and Nebraska announced that they have reached an agreement on a pair of future home-and-home series. Two of the games will be played in Lincoln -- Sept. 8, 2018, and Sept. 7, 2024 -- and the other two in Boulder -- Sept. 7, 2019, and Sept. 9, 2023.
The 2018 game will mark the first meeting of the two football programs since the regular-season finale in 2010, a few months before the Cornhuskers and Buffaloes officially left the Big 12 for the Big Ten and Pac-12, respectively.
“There is a lot of great history between Nebraska and Colorado on the football field, so I think this will be an outstanding series for both schools,” Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini said. “I think our fans will enjoy the matchups, particularly those in Western Nebraska who can make the short drive out to the games in Colorado.”
That 2010 game was the 63rd consecutive season in which the two teams played. All told, the two schools have met 69 times in football, with the ‘Huskers holding a 49-18-2 advantage. Between 1962 and 1985, Nebraska won 23 of the 24 games played.
Colorado and Nebraska had been a member of the same conference since 1948, when the latter joined what was then the Big 7 and eventually became the Big 8. Both programs were a part of the creation of the original Big 12 in 1996.
According to CU’s release, the contract signed by the two schools calls for $300,000 payments from the home team to the visitor in each of the four designated years of the games, with a buyout clause of $1 million if either team wants to cancel out of a game.