Big Ten Schedule Released. Let's React.
THIS IS ALL TEMPORARY
The ACC is crumbling, the Pac 12 may not exist anymore, and Oregon and Washington are blowing up Brett McMurphy's cell phone on a weekly basis to say they heard a rumor that UCLA said they saw USC talking to the AAU about Miami and FSU at 31 flavors, and they think it's pretty serious. As Sam Webb iterated and reiterated on the show this morning, they're just putting this together right now as a stopgap because they're not done expanding.
THE SCHEDULE
Mitch Sherman helpfully got us a screen shot. White games are on the road; gray at home.
[Discussion after THE JUMP]
Michigan, as we all suspected, will visit USC their first year in the conference, despite having Ohio State on the road and Texas visiting that year. The 2024 schedule doesn't have dates yet so we can just order by difficulty:
- @Ohio State (11/30)
- @USC
- Texas (9/7)
- Wisconsin
- @Illinois
- UCLA
- Minnesota
- Maryland
- Michigan State
- @Rutgers
- Arkansas State (9/21)
- Fresno State (8/31)
That is BRUTAL, with three potential contenders at the top, whatever Year 2 Wisconsin with Fickell looks like, going to a now-decent Illinois, tough outs UCLA and Minnesota, and then your 8th-hardest game is a rival that's been recruiting as well as Wisconsin and has you in their crosshairs.
Michigan's 2025 schedule gets a LOT easier but still goes about seven deep in losable games.
- Ohio State (11/29)
- @Oklahoma
- Penn State
- @Nebraska
- @Iowa
- Purdue
- @Maryland
- @Michigan State
- @Indiana
- Northwestern
- Central Michigan (9/13)
- New Mexico (8/30)
YMMV on the power rankings in three years; let's just get through this. Ohio State gets USC at home in 2025 but nothing like Michigan's 2024. I'm sure this was a point of contention, since what we were hearing out of these meetings was a lot of sidemouth B.S. about Michigan's easy 2022 and 2023 schedules. Maybe we shouldn't have canceled the UCLA series.
PLEASE DO A SHOWCASE
They haven't announced the final plans for the championship but they're going to just have the top two teams play, which is a recipe for disaster since there isn't a good way to determine the best two teams.
Showcase! Showcase! Showcase! Play the best three games that weren't played. You can even have it in NFL stadia. Replays are awful and just destroy or confirm information you already had. There is almost no configuration of a season that does not result in an obvious #1 game. Most of the time the #1 game is for the conference championship, but when it isn't that's because the #1 team already defeated all the other contenders and deserves to be the champion.
THE PROTECTED RIVALRIES
Nicole Auerbach broke down the ten protected rivalries.
Here are the Big Ten's protected rivalry games, which will be played on an annual basis — while all other matchups rotate: https://t.co/4FiKEWdSOV pic.twitter.com/1EMB7Kc64N
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) June 8, 2023
This seems like the bare minimum. It's interesting that Maryland and Rutgers couldn't engineer a deal to keep Penn State on the schedule every year. Also note that seven of these protected games occur the final weekend, meaning everyone but Penn State and Michigan State are already seeing someone for Thanksgiving.
They could move Rutgers-Maryland to another week I guess, but there won't be much more variety than that. I wonder if MSU-PSU are going to get locked together or if both will get that week off for a bye, or use it to schedule an interesting independent. Right now PSU-MSU is on the schedule both years.
EVERYONE PLAYS MICHIGAN
I wonder if getting Michigan to visit was one of USC's conditions for joining the league in the first place. Michigan plays both in 2024, continuing a long tradition of always playing the teams they add right away. At least this one isn't locked in. When the B10 added Rutgers and Maryland they put them in the East with Michigan. When the B1G added Nebraska, they configured weird divisions that put Nebraska with Michigan. When the Big11Ten added Penn State and everyone was going to miss two opponents every year, they made sure Penn State didn't miss Michigan. When Michigan State replaced Chicago after World War II, it was on the condition they get a protected rivalry with Michigan. When they organized the conference in 1896, it was so Chicago could play Michigan.
The last team to join the conference and not play Michigan was Ohio State in 1913, but that was only because Michigan had left the conference, and the Western Conference (as it was known then) had banned teams from playing Michigan (except Minnesota ignored them). Before that Michigan-Ohio State had played every year since 1900. The loss of The Game was part of the impetus for Michigan returning to the conference in 1918.
OTHER ODDITIES
Empty Rose Bowl. UCLA's two seasons are extremely unbalanced. Their home schedule in 2024: Ohio State, USC, Nebraska, Minnesota, Northwestern. Their home schedule in 2025: Wisconsin, Purdue, Maryland, and Rutgers. Hope they have interesting non-con opponents.
Have Fun with That. Illinois visits OSU and USC and hosts Michigan, Iowa, and Purdue in 2024.
I may find more later but need to get this posted and get my kids.
The schools are also only 90 miles apart. Only Michigan & Michigan State and Illinois & Purdue are closer than 100 miles to each other in the conference. Well, USC & UCLA now too.
Throw in the Texas-Oklahoma games and you have yet another selling point for recruits.
A big thing I see is that UM has 8 home games in ‘24 and only 6 in ‘25. Not sure if that’s going to fly in the revenue department. Thought they wanted at least 7 home games. Would work if they flipped the marquee non-con game locations.
They got that done with Texas; we'll see if they can with Oklahoma. I'm sure they're trying.
Rather play Minnesota than State every year.
B1G will do whatever they can to F michigan and help OSU. If you don't see that by now, well, pattern recognition is what psychologists use to measure IQ.
I wonder if UM doesn’t cancel the Texas and Oklahoma series. Not much benefit from playing such a rugged OOC now.
Hope not, planning on hitting up one of those out there. Be good to visit out there again.
The home-road split is not great with Michigan only getting 6 home games in 2025 and 2027. I wouldn't be surprised if Oklahoma wouldn't want out too if the SEC were to go to 9 conference games in 2026. The painful part is that the Texas game was involved in the horse trading to extract Texas and Oklahoma from the SEC early, and this is now the second time the locations have flipped. Michigan was supposed to go on the road to Texas in 2024, but FOX negotiated the location change so they would have rights to the game in 2024 in exchange for helping get Texas and Oklahoma out of the Big 12 early.
The counterargument for keeping the games would be that with a 12-team playoff the penalty for potentially losing non-conference games like these would not be as punitive.
Wasn't the network landing spot for Texas one of the sticking points for negotiations with the new TV deal?
It extremely bothers me that Michigan will not play USC at home till at least 2026.
Isn’t the final week of the regular season moving up a week by 2024 to accommodate the extra playoff games ?
That is the reported plan. It would also solve some of the NBC Saturday Night Football November scheduling issues as well.
TV executives got their wishes.
One small correction on end of season games: USC has played ND the final weekend when they play that game at home. If they were to continue this, UCLA would also be free during even years for the final weekend. Looking at UCLA's 2024 schedule, if other traditional rivalry games stayed on the final weekend, the only game UCLA could play in that final week would be Rutgers.
USC's 2024 schedule if it keeps its current non-conference would rival Michigan's 2024: LSU (in Las Vegas), Michigan, @PSU, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Iowa, @UCLA, Illinois, @Maryland, @Purdue, @Northwestern, San Jose St. Talk about no weeks off.
And in regards to UCLA, they have a home-and-home with Georgia in 2025 (home) & 2026 (away), and they travel to LSU in 2024. I'm not sure I have ever seen that before--LSU has nonconference games with USC and UCLA in the same year.
So Dante Moore could be heading to the Big House as a starting QB.
That's going to make for quite a storyline.
I think UCLA leaving for the Big Ten was factored into his thinking when he flipped from Oregon to UCLA. UCLA visits not only Michigan in 2024, but UCLA plays at MSU in 2025 as well. I remember the timing of his commitment was kind of crazy. He committed to Oregon about a week after the announcement of USC & UCLA leaving for the Big Ten.
But who knows with college football and the transfer portal now, especially QBs. Will he be the starter two years from now at UCLA? He might not even be at UCLA two years from now. If he doesn't win the job, he might transfer. If he plays too well as a freshman, he might even transfer up to a better school.
One thing I haven't seen discussed yet is whether/how 5 vs. 4 home games will be figured into tiebreakers for making the B10 Championship. As it is now, you have the same number of home games as the other teams in your division. W/no divisions, that balance will be lost.
Sons - during the BTN discussion / presentation of the '24-'25 schedule - they referenced the CCG and noted that tiebreaking procedures are being determined. The idea is to have the two strongest teams face each other. How they'll figure that out is beyond me.
Michigan states 2025... They are more likely to go 0-fer than be bowl eligible
In his four years at Stanford Coach Harbaugh was 3-1 against USC with two of the wins in LA's Coliseum.
Let's hope this trend continues! The one big difference, at this time, is "D". I think Michigan knows how to play defense - and, it's not something Lincoln Riley's teams have been noted for in the past.
Regardless, I'm looking forward to the upcoming schedule.
What do I like? I like that every B1G team plays every other B1G team at least once during this two year period.
In the future, especially if the conference expands further - I don't know if / how this can be maintained.
My hope would be - somehow, perhaps with a five or six team pod structure - that every team plays every other team in the conference - twice - in a four year period. That would be "home and away" - so, a student at a B1G school would have an opportunity to see every team in the conference play in their home stadium once during their time as an undergrad.
It just seems like things are getting worse. The NCAA is changing rules to take away actual game time, the greedy Big Ten is making the schedule worse for viewers and the players. I don’t know man. Seems like we are headed in the wrong direction.
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