Take two.
In June, the Big Ten Conference announced its 2024 and 2025 schedules for league games with the additions of UCLA and USC next year.
During media days the following month in Indianapolis, commissioner Tony Petitti was asked about further expansion:
“What I’ll say is all the direction I’m getting from leadership, our presidents and chancellors, athletic directors, is to focus on UCLA and USC. I’m proud of the scheduling format we created in football. I think it touches on all the right things.”
A week later, rumors swirled that the Big Ten was going to add Washington and Oregon immediately (they did) and had interest in Cal and Stanford (so far, unfounded). With the additions of the Huskies and Ducks, the Big Ten expands to 18 teams beginning in the 2024 season.
Those previous plans were made mostly unusable and it was back to the drawing board for the conference.
Thursday (October 5, 2023), the Big Ten announced it had revised its conference schedules for not just the 2024 and 2025 football seasons, but each season through 2028.
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The conference is adopting the Flex Protect XVIII Model of scheduling, featuring a combination of protected opponent as well as rotating matchups. The press releases released Thursday said, “Each member institution will continue to play nine intraconference games per season, and teams will play every other conference opponent at least twice – once home and once away – and will play rotating opponents no more than three times in a five-year period.”
When devising the new schedules, the Big Ten factored in a balance of annual travel between universities while implementing a format that can be flexible as the college football season evolves (specific focus on the College Football Playoff).
According to the press release: “The guaranteed annual protected matchups are Illinois-Northwestern, Illinois-Purdue, Indiana-Purdue, Iowa-Minnesota, Iowa-Nebraska, Iowa-Wisconsin, Maryland-Rutgers, Michigan-Michigan State, Michigan-Ohio State, Minnesota-Wisconsin, Oregon-Washington and UCLA-USC.”
The 2024 Big Ten football season will conclude with the Big Ten Football Championship Game, which will feature the top two teams in conference standings competing for the crown and a likely trip to the playoffs.
The full list of conference opponents for the next five seasons can be viewed below.
