Troy Dannen defines Memorial Stadium project progress as 'status quo'

The Nebraska Cornhuskers are getting ready to open the 2025 season. They do that as the Memorial Stadium renovation project remains a topic of conversation around the program that athletic director Troy Dannen is focused on.

This also comes at a time of financial difficulty for the University of Nebraska itself. The school’s chancellor, Rodney D. Bennett, recently announced “significant budget challenges,” which could impact future projects. Because of that, while Dannen insisted that the Memorial Stadium project remains status quo, he also shared that nothing will be going to the board for approval right now.

“A lot of people are interested in speaking of the stadium and where the Memorial Stadium project is,” Troy Dannen said. “I would tell you the status quo. A couple of things. When I say we’re continuing to plan, in a normal time, a stadium project like this, all of this work would be done without anyone knowing we’re doing it. But, the fact that the project was out there in the public, approved to some degree by the planning board, I think everybody’s waiting for the next step. We’re continuing basically looking at east, west, north, and south in totality.”

In May, it was reported that the Memorial Stadium project was coming with a hefty price tag. The renovations were initially announced in 2022, before Troy Dannen was at the school. Back then, it had a $450 million price tag. Now, it looks like it will be higher than that, somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion.

“This week, the chancellor sent a note out talking about the structural deficit of the university. The president has spoken about some of the system-wide financial issues. There’s going to be a lot of trauma ahead. We’re not going to take anything to the board for their approval, and I don’t know when we will. The time is not now in the midst of what I would level some degree of crisis on campus,” Dannen said. “Consternation at the very least, crisis at the very most. Now is not the time to debut a big capital project.”

In the chancellor’s message, he shared the financial issues Nebraska is facing are severe enough that the budget needs to be reduced by $27.5 million. The chancellor also warned that academic programs could be cut as a way to address the shortfalls.

“But, we’re going to continue to work on the plans. We’re going to continue to fine-tune the financial model,” Dannen said. “And at whatever point in time, I think we can comfortably take it back, we’ll take it back. Otherwise, I would just say status quo.”

For the most part, the plans for the Memorial Stadium project have been kept under wraps. However, the general consensus seems to be that it’s going to be an effort to modernize the stadium with more luxury boxes and more comfortable seating. For the time being, though, it appears that the project has not yet begun, even if things are status quo.