So, although Memorial Stadium in Lincoln was empty, approximately 25,000 fans watched the game from Facebook, Twitter and Twitch channels, the newspaper reported.
The simulated game was played on EA Sports' NCAA Football and featured stars from Nebraska squads, past and present, ESPN reported.
The White team, quarterbacked by 2001 Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch, rallied for a 63-60 overtime victory against the Red team, which was quarterbacked by Tommie Frazier, who led the Cornhuskers to the 1995 national championship, the World-Herald reported.
"We talk every day about, 'How can we keep our fans engaged during this time?' We don't want to be insensitive to the larger-scale picture and what's going on with the pandemic, but at the same time, this is a unique place and we have the best fans in the country," Garrett Klassy, the school's deputy athletic director, told the Lincoln Journal-Star. "They're hungry for information, and they're hungry to be engaged with Husker athletics."
The first half was played as a virtual simulation, with a halftime speech by former Cornhuskers coach Tom Osborne, ESPN reported. followed by a speech from former Cornhuskers coach Tom Osborne. The second-half plays were controlled by current Nebraska players Cam Taylor-Britt and Wan'Dale Robinson.
Thank you @Huskers @Matt_Davison @SharpeGreg for making this day fun for all of us!!! In times of adversity we all pulled through! Looking forward to 2020 season #GBRUnited #GBR #Huskers
— Eric Crouch (@croucheric) April 18, 2020
There was even a pregame show, and former Nebraska defensive tackle sang the national anthem, the World-Herald reported. Twenty-one members of the Cornhusker Marching Band, playing from their homes, performed "There's No Place Like Nebraska," the newspaper reported.
Husker Sports Network announcers Greg Sharpe and Matt Davison called the action.
Crouch was thoroughly engaged in the game and commented on Twitter during the livestream event, noting that, “In times of adversity we all pulled through. Looking forward to the 2020 season.”
Klassy said the engagement in sports, even in a virtual atmosphere, was comforting to fans, players and coaches.
"My first taste of having something that really changed this country was 9/11," Klassy told the Journal Star. "I was ticket director at Tulane at the time. And it was unbelievable to me to see that, what was the No. 1 thing that everybody talked about after talking about the terrorist attack on this country? That was, 'Is football going to be played this weekend?' That was the moment in my career when I realized, 'Wow, this is people's passion and this is their distraction and this is what galvanizes and unites this country.'"
About the Author