Nebraska AD reacts to tough schedule: 'I wasn't toasting champagne'

Despite being a leading force in the Big Ten resuming its fall college football season, Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos wasn't pleased with his school's 2020 schedule.

Opening the campaign Oct. 24 on the road against Ohio State before hosting Wisconsin the following week, Moos admitted he "wasn't toasting champagne" when he got ahold of his school's eight-game slate.

"For obvious reasons, I was hoping we could dissemble the schedule because of unique circumstances and rebuild it to be fair for each school in the conference," Moos said, according to Omaha.com's Sam McKewon. "I was outspoken on that, to the point where they heard it from me every day. The rationale was there, I didn't think we needed to follow it. Nebraska is playing five AP preseason top-25 teams. Ohio State's playing two.

"I'm sure my friend (and Ohio State AD) Gene Smith is smiling today. His friend Bill Moos is not. I've got a good football team with a great football coach that deserves a break here or there to start getting back on track to being a contender in the Big Ten West."

After a tough opening two contests, Nebraska will face off against Northwestern on Nov. 7 before playing Penn State, another team ranked inside the top 10 of The Associated Press' preseason poll. Meanwhile, its game against Rutgers - a school that finished 0-9 in conference play last year - was dropped.

"I think a little more thought could have been put into pieces of this, and it wasn't," Moos said. "I don't believe there'd be Big Ten football without Nebraska's persistence in the whole process, all the way back to voluntary workouts. I harped on that until we got it."

Despite his frustration, Moos didn't want to "come across as the champion complainer" and the schedule is "water under the bridge" now that it's been officially released.

"I wasn't just going to sit around and listen and get kicked around. I’ll never do that," he said. "They knew I wasn't pleased. But the schedule's in place, it is what it is, they won't hear any more out of me. We're going to strap the chin strap on and go out and win games."

The Cornhuskers battled through an inconsistent campaign in 2019, their second under head coach Scott Frost, finishing 5-7 (3-6 in Big Ten play).