Big Ten Meets on Schedule Structure
Dochtermann article in The Athletic this morning re: Big Ten schedule format and changes. School athletic officials will meet today and tomorrow outside of Chicago to discuss changes that will happen beginning with the 2024 schedule.
As always, if you have a sub, you should check it out. If you don't, consider getting one. But here's a little recap...
Illinois athletics director Josh Whitman:
“We’re all motivated to get to some structure in place to get some finality around what ’24 and beyond is going to look like. I’m optimistic we’ll see that done sooner rather than later. But I’m not sure what that exact timeline will be.”
As The Athletic first detailed in March, the three scheduling formats under consideration are the following:
• Protect 3: Three permanent protected matchups, with games against six of the remaining 12 Big Ten opponents one year and the other six the next. Every four years, each team would play three teams four times and the remaining 12 teams twice.
• Protect 2: Two permanent protected matchups, played four times over four years. Over the course of four years, each Big Ten team would play the remaining league opponents at least twice and two of those teams three times.
• Flex Protect: A hybrid model in which each Big Ten team has one, two or three protected opponents. This format allows schedule-makers the most flexibility in terms of competitive balance, home-and-away rotations and the specific challenges around West Coast travel for teams playing USC or UCLA.
It's a bit interesting what the perceived goals of the schedules aim to accomplish. I'm curious if these three main goals are also "in order."
But those involved in Big Ten scheduling decisions are confident that any of these three models would achieve their three main goals: To take into account historical and current competitive balance, to play leaguemates more frequently and to create pathways to the College Football Playoff for more teams in the 12-team CFP era. Improved schedule balance should enhance the resumes of teams that have historically had weaker league schedules while not unduly burdening the best teams in the league.
A guaranteed deal is not promised to occur out of these meetings.
New Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, who officially took over for Kevin Warren two weeks ago, will be present at this week’s meetings and is expected to provide his input on the scheduling decision. If the final decision on the future scheduling model is not reached this week, it would likely come at some point this summer.
It's interesting to also consider how many Michigan fans would be fine with letting the MSU rivalry game rest for a bit, in favor of other protected options. That said, I don't think a broad view of the conferences rivalries shares this opinion. It may not be Ohio State. But it's not a fabricated land grant "rivalry" nonsense either.
Rivalries are an important component of the decision. Michigan has two signature rivalries with Ohio State and Michigan State. Iowa has three with Wisconsin, Minnesota and Nebraska. Others vary in intensity from school to school. But newcomers Maryland, Rutgers, UCLA and USC don’t require more than perhaps one protected foe. Plus, the league wants to limit all of its football programs to only one West Coast trip per year. If USC and UCLA were each other’s only fixed opponent, that would help with scheduling and sequencing everyone else — a big benefit of that Flex Protect option.
“There have been a lot of different iterations that we’ve looked at over the last several months and each of them has its advantages and its disadvantages,” Whitman said. “We’ve had to kind of weigh those things out. Everybody has an opportunity to provide input, and the conference has been very responsive to our feedback to try to tighten up different models over time. I think we’re getting closer, but like I said, it’s hard to know exactly what that timeline will look like and ultimately where things really end.”
At least a couple of league athletic directors expect — and hope — that nonconference scheduling remains up to each individual school, as is the case now. Despite a report to the contrary last week, the Big Ten has not operated under a system that required each institution to play at least one Power 5 opponent per year. Michigan, for example, did not play any Power 5 nonconference opponents in 2022 and will not this coming fall, either.
I think option 2 makes the most sense. Protect OSU and MSU. I would be fine not playing MSU every year, but option 3 would make to *too* infrequent.
That said, would love to play Minnesota more often - that’s a historical rivalry and trophy game that has value.
You've misunderstood what Option 3 ("Flex Protect") means. In Options 1 and 2, each school has the same number of protected games every year. In Option 3, they protect what is needed, and this can vary from school to school.
In Option 1 ("Protect 3"), inevitably some of the protected games will seem arbitrary. For instance, try to come up with three "rivals" for Rutgers that make sense — you can't do it. USC and UCLA do not have obvious annual rivals, except each other.
In Option 3, some teams will have 3 protected games, others will have 2 or 1. I guarantee that Michigan will have at least two. There is no way they are letting UM-MSU off the schedule. That is not happening.
Get MSU off the "protected" list. All that game is is needless injury risk to Michigan players. Replace MSU with Minnesota.
Agreed. I would not care if we ever played MSU again. We don't play WSU, CMU, EMU, NMU, SVSU, Hope, Grand Valley, Farris St, Lake St. every year either. So why would be play MSU every year? I just do not get it.
I have never really gotten a good take on where the Minnesota fanbase puts the Michigan rivalry now. Is it below Wisconsin and Iowa? Above Nebraska? It's possible Minnesota wouldn't have Michigan in their protected two.
Michigan has two signature rivalries with Ohio State and Michigan State.
I miss the battles for the Little Brown Jug. I'm not sure I miss MINNESOTA, but the Little Brown Jug is pretty important.
Brown Jug > Paul Bunyan
ST3 - The Brown Jug means SO many things. Just think - cheeseburgers and fries.
Is there ANYTHING of significance in Ann Arbor - besides a spot in the trophy case in Schembechler Hall - which notes Paul Bunyan?
It's one reason the game has taken on additional meaning for me. Winning or losing the Jug also means that you have to wait another 3 years to win it back if you were to lose it. High stakes for the most important rivalry trophy in Michigan's display case.
I hope that the league doesn't leave nonconference scheduling completely up to each individual school. Sure, let them have a ton a rope in scheduling non conference but our nonconference schedule the last two years has been a joke. The league should require at least 1 P5 nonconference game in my opinion.
This is an interesting little additional backstory nugget on league nonconference scheduling from the article as well.
Back in 2015, former Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany unveiled a league scheduling ethos he called “Strength of Schedule 1910.” The numbers stood for one annual Power 5 nonconference opponent, nine Big Ten contests, one league championship game and zero games against FCS competition. Delany highlighted the scholarship difference between FBS and FCS programs as a primary reason to avoid those matchups.
Two years later, Delany voided the FCS requirement for years when teams played host to only four Big Ten opponents. Guaranteed payouts for Group of 5 opponents cost roughly $1 million more than for FCS opponents. Plus, FCS opponents in the league’s western footprint such as North Dakota State, South Dakota State and Northern Iowa brought thousands of fans and often offered more competitive games than many nearby Group of 5 opponents. So, that was an easy loophole.
Although it didn’t attract as much attention as the no-FCS edict, Big Ten schools also shrugged off the call for 10 Power 5 opponents, treating it as a suggestion rather than a mandate. In every season since “Strength of Schedule 1910” went into effect, at least one Big Ten team has played a nonconference slate without a Power 5 opponent in it. In 2018, five teams didn’t have one. This year, Michigan is the only program who doesn’t face a major nonconference opponent.
At the end of December, when Michigan is preparing for the playoffs, I don't think anyone cares that Michigan beat Hawaii, UConn and Western Michigan in the non-con. However, they would care if Michigan players were at home setting their DVRs for other teams' playoff games because Michigan set a tough non-con schedule and lost to ND and Washington or Texas or someone else.
Let's not create a chance to beat our fists on our chests for meaningless September games and risk missing out on meaningful December and January games. With the playoffs, it's all about maximizing your chances and minimizing the risks to getting there.
I think you're only remembering the part of the end of the year where we won all of our games. Had we lost to Ohio State our non conference schedule would have likely kept us out of the playoffs. Scheduling one game against a mediocre Notre Dame team (that was thought to be better) put Ohio State back in the playoffs.
There's a way to do this where we're not limiting our chances at playoff football, but also not limiting our chances at playoff football. It lives in between the two extremes.
Sure but you're talking about a 4-team playoff, not the expanded one.
If you go back through recent History (Bo-era and forward), there are many years where the non-conference schedule kept Michigan from a National title. Just off the top of my head, I think in 1988, 89 and 91 the only losses were in non-con games. I'd rather have not played Notre Dame for the opening game of 1989, beaten some patsy and be undefeated in the Rose Bowl, playing for a mythical national championship.
So, my point is less about the four team playoff and more about a wholistic playoff. The "strategy" behind as lite a schedule as possible seems like it has an inherent negative built in. Michigan's schedule was THE conversation topic for media-types as the pre-conference season was upon us. Then resurfaced late in the year as SOS and tournament talk began. None of it was positive, and every point Brian made, or tweet that one guy had, about comparative schedule strength, seemed to fall on deaf ears. The narrative had been written, opinions were made.
This will still apply in a larger playoff scenario as well.
I agree with the idea that it makes little sense to schedule a knockdown gauntlet lineup of non-conference opponents. You have to have the record to get in.
But like I said, I don't think three cupcakes in nonconference to ensure you go into the conference schedule 3-0 is necessarily the right idea either.
There's a way to do this to put yourself in the best possible situation to make the playoff, not appear to have "bad faith" scheduling tactics (which is what I think opinionists were jumping up and down on), while also doing your best to maximize the situation. In decade-ago basketball terminology, this is what we did poorly with scheduling RPI 300+ teams.
Is ND considered a P5 school?
I rather we play meaningful games and accept the results. If I had my way the big ten would play all conference games and eliminate the non-conference schedule. I love B1G football and the way to make it even better is to eliminate the cupcake games.
I like a few cupcake games and the one notable OOC game Michigan has historically played. I am already hyped for the Texas game in 2024.
I love Big Ten football too, but college football has always been a national sport. Playing teams from from the West Coast to East Coast, North and South…reinforces that.
I too am looking forward to the game against Texas. Michigan's OOC games in 2022 and 2023 are horrible. If we are going to put ourselves in jeopardy of losing to a historically bad team, I rather it be Northwestern or Rutgers. Plus, I want GA and AL to play real games and not schedule Little Sisters of the Poor. Starting in 2024 we will be playing games against teams from coast to coast. With the expanded playoffs we will have more opportunities to beat the top teams from the south too.
SMFH58- I don't think you understand the nature of modern college football.
There are few if any teams that can handle the physical demands of playing all "meaningful games" A team needs some easy teams to practice on and to reduce the incidence of injuries.
Michigan was pretty dominant in 2022 and we still played the last 3 games without our #1 running back, #1 DE, #1 TE, #2 LB
There is a reason that Alabama has the most championships in the last 10 years and part of it is playing Louisiana-Monroe type schools in their last 2 regular season games.
our nonconference schedule the last two years has been a joke
Yet interesting in how "the last two years" worked out in the big picture and I like how it sets up this year. However...with the CFP expansion we should probably see better non-conference games.
Teams have controlled their nonconference schedules for many years, and it has generally turned out fine. The Big Ten did mandate at least one P5 game for a short while, although there were liberal exceptions. For instance, they counted the service academies as "P5", which they obviously are not.
Michigan had a home & home with UCLA that was cancelled, and that explains the lame schedules the past 2 years. Other than that, Michigan has just about always scheduled a P5 opponent voluntarily.
Our 3 protected will be: OSU, Penn St, and USC
Nothing quite like having the three weakest teams in the conference in an annual rotation.
The Flex option seems obvious. Some schools need three games to be protected and played annually, some only one or two, so the discretion to fill in the rest should be up to the schedule-makers. Assuming they're not completely idiotic or biased against certain teams, there should be a way to build a 10-year schedule that's balanced and keeps everybody happy. I don't think the planning needs to go longer than that since continued expansion is likely.
The problem with the Flex Protect option is that the "math" doesn't necessarily work out well on all "equality" metrics.
Back in the 10-team, 8-game Pac-10 they had a version of "Flex Protect." The 4 California schools were guaranteed games against each other. Similarly for the 4 Pacific NW schools. The Arizona schools were only guaranteed their in-state rival.
What that meant mathematically, however: in the long-run, the Pacific NW schools played in California less often than the Arizona schools did. And they didn't like that.
They eventually shifted to a model that fixed that, but it also meant that each school went up to 6(!!) annual protected games.
I don't know what exactly the B1G analogy to that would be ---- but it's probably lurking in the weeds as an unintended consequence of a Flex Protect option.
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(FWIW, I do personally think the "3 guaranteed annual foes" is the way to go.)
The expansion of the playoff will, hopefully, encourage stronger OOC games / matchups.
The B1G appears to be maintaining nine conference games - I applaud this. Frankly, I'd be good with ten conference games.
The SEC and ACC haven't, to my knowledge, expressed any interest in expanding beyond their 8 conference game schedules. Though those conferences may also include one P5 team in their OOC, most usually also include an FCS opponent.
So - in the above - examples - B1G teams - even if they do not play a P5 team in the OOC, will play nine P5 teams during the season, since every conference game is by definition, a P5 opponent. The SEC / ACC - IF they play a P5 school during their OOC, will increase the number of P5 opponents from 8 (in conference play) - to nine total on the season.
:It will be interesting to see if the CFP Committee ever makes a recommendation on the number of P5 teams played in a season. I doubt it will ever happen.
Though I don't know what "other" schools will be doing - it appears Alabama's OOC scheduling will be taking a step forward (IMO) in the not too distant future. Bama actually has two P5 schools in future OOC schedules, so in those years with two OOC P5 opponents - and their SEC schedule - they'd face ten P5 teams in a season. Which - would be what the B1G has been doing - whenever a single P5 OOC opponent is schedule in a given year.
P.S. What will happen if Washington and Oregon are invited at some time after June 30th?
Michigan fans say they're fine canceling the MSU game, but Michigan draws more for a home game vs MSU than any opponent save Ohio State, so Michigan is going to protect the MSU game.
I'm not sure that MIchigan want to protect the Michigan State game. I believe that U of M would do better to not have Michigan State on the schedule. With Michigan State getting killed by OSU every year it would become very difficult for State to get any positive media/recruiting attention.
Michigan State on the other hand would attack people in a tunnel to make sure they stay on Michigan's schedule every year.
Wasn't there a rumor that Michigan asked for OSU and Minnesota as their protected games?
You’re trying to start a rumor about a rumor you might have heard?
I kind of agree as I don't think Michigan fans are being realistic about this. The MSU game is a big TV and ticket game now.
One thing I am curious about is where the MSU game ranked before Dantonio though. I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, and I don't remember it being the draw that it is now. Most fans didn't even know the Paul Bunyan trophy existed or what it looked like. I think part of that is because Michigan no longer plays Notre Dame annually like they did during long stretches of that time. The MSU game was definitely a level below OSU and ND for me during that time and possibly even below PSU because they were brand new in the league and really good in the 1990s. I wonder if the MSU game might drop off in intensity if their program were to become less competitive.
"Protect 3: ...Three permanent protected matchups, with games against six of the remaining 12 Big Ten opponents one year and the other six the next."
This sounds like in a four year period, year one - the other six are: Teams "A through F". In year two - the other six are Teams "G though L". In year three, Teams "A through F" again, and in year four, Teams "G through L" again.
My view - and, I wonder what others' views are - play Team "A through F" in a home and home in years 1 and 2, while playing teams "G through L" in a home and home in years 3 and 4?
What do you think?
I think many players and fans would prefer to A through F and G through L in years, more so than the home and home back to back. Devin Gardner mentioned that he regretted not being able to play all the other teams (and ideally visit each of the stadiums) in the conference at least once.
For fans, if anything, the year off would build anticipation for the next year.
Option 4. Kick msu and Rutgers out of the B1G
Protect 3. That way everyone is played at least twice in a 4 year period and the protected games are still every year. Who wouldn't want to see UCLA or USC and Michigan or OSU at least twice in a 4 year period?
Where's the goal to
"Schedule games so that makes the B1G the most advertising revenue possible"?
If that's not stated, they're not being totally honest.
I would like to see the Gophers on the schedule every year. MSU does nothing for me except cringe when we have to play them. The cheap shots, bad calls etc. The Gophers have been a rival since Yost and MSU really the last 20 years, except in the late 60’s and Bo’s first couple of years. It gets old being their Super Bowl.
Removing MSU as a protected rival when it looks like we're finally going to dominate them again would be a major unforced error.
I'm ok with requiring B1G teams to play one non-conf power 5 team, but what happens if you can't get one on your schedule?
SO... they want to protect each B1G team from having to make only ONE West Coast trip?
But... USC and UCLA have to make... (stops to count)... four or five EAST coast trips a year? (ok, Neb or Iowa etc. aren't "east coast"... but Lincoln is the closest to SoCal and it's still a heckuva haul.)
But they each supposedly get $60M per year for being in the Big10 vs. maybe $30M per year in Pac12.
A few more plane trips is probably worth the extra $30M per year.
Depending on when in the season and the itinerary, they could do what teams like Hawaii do and travel east and stay for the week rather than flying back and forth.
(UCLA is on the quarter system, so classes don't begin till late September).
(I actually think the SEC scheduling of some conference games in September and then some non-conference games in October and November makes sense from several perspectives.)
Actually, all of them seem better than whatever we've had in recent years. It seemed like we played Wisconsin every year and seldom saw some of the other traditional Big10 teams.
But since we have to chose one I'd vote for the Flex Protect.
Whatever they decide we shall be fucked.
While I'd actually prefer to see pods, and Protect 2 would ensure 1 home, 1 away rivalry game a year, I guess the Protect 3 is the simplest/cleanest (though maybe rotating the 2nd or 3rd protected rival a bit).
But whatever they do, I'd like to the Conference Championship Game between the top two teams who did not play each other in the regular season.
Here's a question though:
If the conference opponents are divided effectively into to two groups to see opponents every year (in the Protect 2 or Protect 3 scenarios for example), would Michigan have the same common opponents as Ohio State, or would they be the opposite set so there were only one or two opponents in common?
(I am sure if you look at USC/UCLA and maybe Michigan/MSU, TV would certainly want the variety in having them playing different opponents).
I don’t understand the desire to stop playing MSU. Sure they’re petulant and terrible, but that just makes it more fun to beat them. And we still have some bragging rights to build back up after that bad stretch