The University of Nebraska football team — with records of 1-6 overall and 1-4 in the Big Ten — will play host to Bethune-Cookman at noon on Saturday.

The Wildcats, an FCS team with a 4-4 mark on the year, will be paid $800,000 to play in Lincoln. For Nebraska, the game is a replacement for the Sept. 1 season opener against Akron that was canceled because of storms that made playing a night game improbable.

Akron, meanwhile, has yet to schedule a 12th game, which likely would have to be played on Dec. 1, since the Zips already have had their bye week (on Sept. 29, prior to the start of Mid-American Conference play). The Zips likely will only do so if they need a win to get to .500 and become bowl eligible.

At 3-3 heading into Saturday's home game against Central Michigan, the Zips need to win three of their last five games to get to that point. And with a slate that includes home games against Central Michigan (1-7, 0-4 MAC), Northern Illinois (4-3, 4-0) and Bowling Green (1-7, 0-4), plus road contests against Eastern Michigan (4-4, 2-3) and Ohio (5-3, 3-1), that certainly seems feasible.

If the Zips, though, finish that stretch at 5-6, it's possible they could, as director of athletics Larry Williams told Cleveland.com in September, request a waiver from the NCAA to ensure that a second victory over an FCS school would make Akron bowl eligible. The Zips already own a 41-7 victory over Morgan State, which puts Akron at the one-win FCS limit to count toward bowl eligibility.

Another ramification of the Nebraska cancellation was the $1.17 million that Akron was supposed to be paid for opening its season in Lincoln.

The Omaha World-Herald reported in September that the contract between the schools laid out circumstances in which the deal could be voided. "Among the weather-related items," the story noted, "only 'tropical storm,' 'hurricane' and 'flood' are mentioned. Thunderstorms and lightning — which canceled Saturday night's game — are not mentioned, and neither are tornadoes."

So the Cornhuskers should be doling out the $1.17 million, right?

Well, Nebraska wanted to play the game on Sunday morning, Sept. 2, but the Zips balked because they wouldn't have been able to accommodate all of their players in the same hotel, and by the time they had gotten settled — at a hotel or in dorms that the Cornhuskers had offered — the players would have only been able to get a few hours of sleep.

"We'll insist on full payment," Williams told us in September, a couple days after the Zips had recorded a road win over a different Big Ten team, Northwestern, to move to 2-0 on the season. "We're trying to work through that right now. We'll need to get something scheduled if we need the game. We're in conversations with a number of other schools about lining up something if we need that game."

The Zips also could use the $1.17 million, which, going by the athletic department's 2017-18 revenues, could represent about 14% of the money that's brought in by the university's sports programs.

As we outlined in a print story a few weeks ago, the Zips' athletic budget — which was $33.1 million in 2017-18 — is a "dilemma" at a university that has had its share of leadership and financial challenges the last few years. The Zips' athletic revenues last year were $8,295,808. That's a theme that's common in the MAC and elsewhere, as midmajor schools pay for the vast majority of their athletic budgets with student fees and other institutional support.

Asked this week if there was any news on a deal being worked out with Nebraska, Cathy Bongiovi, Akron's assistant athletics director for communications, said there was "no update at this time."

Since the Cornhuskers are paying Bethune-Cookman $800,000 to fill the void left by the Sept. 1 cancellation, we wonder if they're going to continue to haggle with Akron over the seven-figure agreement that had been struck for 2018. The trip, Williams has said, cost the Zips $165,000.

Nebraska, according to USA Today's research, is one of 14 Division I schools whose athletic revenues cover its expenses. The Cornhuskers' $120,205,090 in 2017 revenues ranked 23rd in the nation.

What should happen — Nebraska paying Akron, even though the game wasn't played — seems obvious.

What will happen, we're not so sure.