This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Now that it is safe to assume BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall will return for his 11th season in 2015 with pretty much the same staff from 2014 intact (only the strength coach has changed), it seems like a good time to start looking ahead to the opener, which is Sept. 5 at Nebraska.

Yes, in 229 days, the Cougars will face the Cornhuskers at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.

And they will get a cool $1 million for their efforts.

I know that because I recently obtained the game contract — signed by administrators and athletic directors from both schools way back on Feb. 1, 2012 — through the University of Nebraska by filing an open records request.

The contract is posted below for your reading pleasure.

Probably to the chagrin of BYU fans, the contract is for just one game — Nebraska won't be returning the game in Provo, which is why the Cougars are getting a million bucks, which Nebraska doesn't have to pay in full until Dec. 31, oddly enough.

The Cougars and Huskers sat on the agreement for more than three weeks when they hashed it out nearly three years ago, because the official announcement didn't come until Feb. 23.

At that time, BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe hinted in a school news release that perhaps more games would be scheduled with Nebraska, but that hasn't happened.

"Nebraska was looking for a game in 2015 and the timing was good for BYU," Holmoe noted. "I look forward to developing a long term relationship with Nebraska."

A couple more observations from the contract:

• The game will be officiated by referees from the Big Ten Conference.

• BYU will receive 3,000 tickets to sell through its ticket office

• Nebraska and the Big Ten Conference have all the television broadcast rights to the game

• BYU president Kevin Worthen, who was then the school's advancement vice president, made some last-minute alterations to the contract to ensure BYUtv can rebroadcast highlights of the game by writing some clauses by hand in the columns.

- Jay Drew