2023 Big Ten Schedule React
The Big Ten finally released its retooled schedule for next year. Here's the whole conference (click to big):
via Big Ten
And here's ours vs the old one:
Date | NEW | WAS |
---|---|---|
September 2 | East Carolina | East Carolina |
September 9 | UNLV | UNLV |
September 16 | Bowling Green | Bowling Green |
September 23 | Rutgers | at Minnesota |
September 30 | at Nebraska | Bye |
October 7 | at Minnesota | (at) Michigan State |
October 14 | Indiana | at Nebraska |
October 21 | at Michigan State | Purdue |
October 28 | Bye | at Maryland |
November 4 | Purdue | at Penn State |
November 11 | at Penn State | Rutgers |
November 18 | at Maryland | (vs) Indiana |
November 25 | Ohio State | Ohio State |
Note that on the old-old schedule MSU was at home and IU on the road, as this was announced before they fixed the home-road deal in 2020. For months before Michigan took the old schedule down I was getting board posts from people who thought they were going back to MSU being at home the same years as OSU.
Discuss. Not much to. Michigan's game at Penn State got pushed back a week while Ohio State gets home games against MSU and Minnesota in the weeks before The Game. MSU got their bye week moved up to two weeks before Michigan, with Rutgers in the way. Michigan's bye got moved to late October, the week after MSU. Getting Rutgers at the top of the year and the late-November version of Maryland is nice.
The opening week Big Ten games are Nebraska at Minnesota (Thursday night), IU-OSU, and Rutgers-Northwestern.
[After the JUMP: weak? why?]
Strong schedule? Weak schedule? Schedule?
Michigan's crossover games remain at Nebraska, at Minnesota, and vs Purdue. OSU's, for the record, are at Purdue, at Wisconsin, and vs Minnesota. Purdue and Minnesota are welcome to lodge their complaints with any Big Ten East team. With that Purdue game, a trip to Penn State, and Ohio State in November they get another good ramp-up, but once again might not be able to make the playoffs with one loss, pending a few teams along the way getting themselves ranked.
The one thing this schedule still lacks is a marquee non-conference opponent. A list of Power 5 matchups around the league:
- Ohio State at Notre Dame (9/23)
- Illinois at Kansas (9/9)
- El-Assico: Iowa at Iowa State (9/9)
- Minnesota at North Carolina (9/16)
- Nebraska at Colorado (9/9)
- Northwestern at Duke (9/16)
- Purdue at Virginia Tech (9/9)
- Purdue vs Syracuse (9/16 and holy hell Purdue)
- Wisconsin at Washington State (9/9)<---error in the graphic.
- Indiana vs Louisville at Lucas Oil Stadium (9/16)
- Maryland vs Virginia (9/16)
- Michigan State vs Washington (9/16)
- Penn State vs West Virginia (9/2)
- Rutgers vs Virginia Tech (9/16)
Michigan is the only Big Ten that doesn't play a Power 5 opponent outside the conference. The game at UCLA was scheduled for 9/2 but that was canceled and replaced with ECU.
Big Noon November?
A lot could change but at first glance all of Michigan's November games are likely to get the most ratings (Maryland performs well). It's possible that Illinois vs Minnesota is for the Big Ten West lead when Michigan plays Purdue, but with Michigan's home slate up to that point you'd imagine Fox would be itching to get to Ann Arbor. The one at Penn State is up against OSU at MSU. The Game is a gimme.
Is this because we're adding UCLA and USC?
No, this is a continuation of the fussing they did last year. They're still trying to figure out how to put the 2024+ seasons together.
Why are we doing this then?
The simple version is State screwed themselves when they screwed Michigan in 2014, and the Big Ten used the 2020 season to un-screw the situation but needed to reconfigure dates to deal with the fallout.
The mess was created in 2014, when Maryland and Rutgers joined. Michigan State used the opportunity to request the UM-MSU home-road years be flipped, giving State two home games in a row in 2013 and 2014. This accomplished a secondary goal of unbalancing Michigan's even/odd year home schedules, as MSU joined Ohio State (and at the time Notre Dame) on Michigan's odd year home slate. Indiana's series with both Michigan schools was swapped to make this happen. Via John U. Bacon in his book Endzone, the unpopularity of Dave Brandon among his fellow ADs was a contributing factor to the rest of the Big Ten going along with the plan. Only Indiana, who would now be getting Michigan and Ohio State at home on the same years, stood with Michigan against the plan.
This created the same problem for Michigan State, however. The Spartans were keen on moving it back but not if it meant Michigan got to host the extra home game. That changed with COVID, since State would be set to blow its hosting year on an empty stadium in 2020. MSU was down since it rescued a home game for them. Michigan was down because it cleaned up the scheduling imbalance.
This however had some cascading issues—like Michigan getting just one home game from 9/16 to 11/11—in future schedules, so the conference had to start moving things around, and that led to other schools requesting changes. The retooled 2021 and 2022 schedules were both announced late (if you have a 2021 edition of Hail to the Victors you may notice the opponents are out of order), and the Big Ten intended to settle long-term matters starting in 2023.
However with USC and UCLA joining the conference in 2024, the 2023 season is now just a one-off, and new considerations came into play, mostly due to the curtailing of the Big Ten's locked rivals series. You will note Michigan was locked in with Wisconsin every year from 2016 to 2021. Starting with the 2022 rotation Ohio State was supposed to take their turn playing Wisconsin every season while Illinois rotated off their radars (great timing). The guess is they're going to blow the whole thing up again in 2024.
October 26th, 2022 at 1:31 PM ^
The major competition issues with the schedule are potential logjams of tough games, non-conf opponents, and figuring out what crossover games are blessings or curses.
Purdue might be the toughest crossover. We don’t have Wisconsin or Iowa, perennial west powers, but they don’t look scary right now. However, we don’t have Illinois, either, and they DO look like a quality team.
Except for lacking a P5 non-conference game, this looks fine.
I’m mostly focused on the Minnesota game October 7. One year to scrape together tickets to take my son to a Michigan football game.
October 27th, 2022 at 12:31 AM ^
When I moved to Minnesota, part of the excitement was the opportunity to see Michigan play @ Minnesota. Michigan has played here twice since I moved…both times on Halloween night. I have kids…who love fall and Halloween.
I for one was very excited with the new schedule announcement. I may finally get to bring my kids to a Michigan game!
October 26th, 2022 at 1:32 PM ^
From a fan perspective, this has got to be one of the worst home slates of football games ever. Kinda seems like the athletic department is taking advantage of its own fans by trotted out something this awful:
East Carolina
UNLV
Bowling Green
Rutgers
Indiana
Purdue
Ohio State
Gross.
October 26th, 2022 at 2:38 PM ^
It's not the best but Purdue and OSU is a good finish to the year. I don't think any home schedule will ever be worse than 2014's:
Appalachian State
Miami (Oh)
Utah
Minnesota
PSU (7-6 that year)
Indiana
Maryland
October 26th, 2022 at 1:32 PM ^
only 3 home games in all of Oct-Nov? Geez
October 26th, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
Fingers crossed, but this new schedule looks like Michigan could and should start 7-0 for 3 straight years for the first time since....ever?
October 26th, 2022 at 2:03 PM ^
I am thinking 11-0. Then thump OSU at home.
October 26th, 2022 at 2:32 PM ^
We started out 10-0 four seasons in a row from 1971-74.
October 26th, 2022 at 1:43 PM ^
That was nice of the big ten to let Indiana play at Lucas Oil. Probably the closest they’ll ever be to the championship game.
October 26th, 2022 at 1:52 PM ^
Props to Washington for taking on two B1G teams in one season.
October 26th, 2022 at 1:58 PM ^
That's actually an error in the Big Ten schedule. They're playing Wazzu. https://uwbadgers.com/sports/football/schedule/2023
October 26th, 2022 at 1:53 PM ^
I Maryland continues to ascend, that three game stretch at the end of next season could be BRUTAL.
October 26th, 2022 at 2:19 PM ^
I was thinking the same, though tagaviaola graduates this year, right? One of these years you'd think it would all come together for Locksley.
October 26th, 2022 at 2:31 PM ^
Tagovailoa can still come back for another year due to the 2020 COVID extra year of eligibility, and I would expect him to take advantage of it.
Playing Maryland in November has usually been better for Michigan than playing them earlier in the year as Seth noted in the OP.
October 26th, 2022 at 2:06 PM ^
Outside of the COVID year and including 2022 so far, Michigan’s B1G losses have been:
vs MSU x2 (two of the stupider Michigan games in recent memory), at MSU, vs OSU x3, at OSU x2, at Penn State x2, at Wisconsin x2, at Iowa in a very Kinnick-at-night game.
I could see 8-4 as the floor with losses at Minnesota, at MSU, at PSU, and to Ohio State. But that’s assuming everything goes right for the first three and wrong for Michigan both before next year starts and during the games.
October 26th, 2022 at 2:20 PM ^
OSU thumping ND in front of touchdown Jesus, Nebraska going back to Boulder, and the Mountaineers invading Happy Valley... Those are some tantalizing OOC games next September!
October 26th, 2022 at 2:35 PM ^
Michigan State used the opportunity to request the UM-MSU home-road years be flipped, giving State two home games in a row in 2013 and 2014.
They actually requested this, even though it screwed up their own future schedules? I assumed it was just an oversight by the league office.
October 26th, 2022 at 2:38 PM ^
Couple thoughts:
1. Getting a potential White Out game at PSU that late in the season 2 weeks before OSU kind of sucks. It's not set in stone, but that game is still in play to be played at night or possibly a late afternoon 4PM kick. Michigan played @Iowa at night in 2016 in the same Week 11 2 weeks before OSU.
2. Not a fan of letting both Nebraska and Minnesota jigger their schedules to both get virtual bye weeks with weak nonconference opponents before home games against Michigan. The opening back-to-back road games will be trickier than they seem on paper because of this. Michigan will have 4 straight home games with weak nonconference and a home Rutgers Big Ten opener to counteract some of this so hard to complain too much.
3. PSU getting a bye followed by a nonconference game vs UMass leading up to a road game @ OSU in October is laughable. Franklin has been terrible coming off byes so this one should be fun to watch.
October 26th, 2022 at 2:44 PM ^
IIRC, the first weekend of November is the last week in which a team can unilaterally impose a night game. After that, both teams have to agree. PSU will be the second weekend, so we can veto a night game. Unless that’s changed in the new TV deal.
October 26th, 2022 at 4:00 PM ^
It's worth noting that Michigan is the only B1G East team without a P5 non-con game. However, they're also the only one without an FCS team, so I say it balanaces out.
October 26th, 2022 at 5:26 PM ^
The Penn State game is too late in the year to be a night game, so that's a good thing.
October 26th, 2022 at 6:36 PM ^
Which would you rather play USC or UCLA first.
I wonder if we'll ever get back-to-back years of having to trek to Los Angeles to play USC one year UCLA the next.
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