I don't think this is necessarily true. Iowa has played with the big boys for years with various strong teams and they fill out about 70K. Of all the bonehead games they've dropped over the years, they've never lost because they spotted the other team 20K fans.That would be acceptable. Don’t want to drop below 80,000 in a conference where the big boys have 100,000 plus.
The true test of whether Nebraska will be a big boy is seeing how much and how often a state of 2 million people can be squeezed to keep up with the cost of doing business.