Huge 10 exposes ’24-28 slates with Ducks, Huskies
-
Tom VanHaaren, ESPN Personnel WriterOct 5, 2023, 12:33 PM ET Close ESPN personnel author Joined ESPN in 2011
- Finished from Central Michigan
After adding Oregon and Washington to its ranks, the Big 10 on Thursday announced the latest version of its future football schedules for the 2024 to 2028 seasons.The conference had launched a schedule format in June, however with Oregon and Washington joining its ranks, another release was necessary.This latest
schedule will be formatted with what the conference is calling the “Flex Protect XVII “model, which will feature a mix of safeguarded challengers and turning opponents for the universities.Editor’s Picks 1 Related”We included 2 more [teams], however that changes everything. We got to return to the drawing board and do this rotation once again,”Big 10 commissioner Tony Petitti said on a conference call.”We’re sticking with a lot of the concepts that remained in place when we did the initial statement back with USC and UCLA being integrated, the core principles, competitive balance, connecting the whole conference. Trying to be conscious of travel, all those things are still in location here, securing the traditional rivalries, all of those things remain in this process.”There are 12 surefire protected matches within the brand-new format that will be played yearly: 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. Range and travel have been a huge part of the process for Petitti and Big 10 primary operating officer Kerry Kenny, as adding four West Coast teams created logistics concerns that required to be balanced for student-athletes and budgets. The conference dealt with athletic directors on finding that balance and making sure that things were operating in the most effective method for everybody included. “There’s an overall narrative that’s being painted that every competitors that’s going to take place in the Big 10 is going to be a midweek game including a team from Eugene against a team from Piscataway. That’s not truly what we’re looking at here,”Kenny stated. “We’ve taken an actually thoughtful technique, not just to football however sport by sport, that’s going to be impacted by including these 4 schools. And what is the most efficient way to develop schedules, create opponent rotations in formats that attempt to minimize, to the level possible, that time away from campus. “Kenny said the mental and physical well-being of the professional athletes was at the leading edge of the sequencing– things such as making certain that if a group is playing an away game two time zones over, it will not
likewise be playing a midday away game at a Main time zone school the next week. The conference thought about the weekly ups and downs of a season in addition to bye weeks and Friday night games that may affect travel. The #B 1G Reveals Future Football Arrange Format https://t.co/hfPUYhaiqX pic.twitter.com/JZqcS2Fn0Q!.?.!— Big Ten Football(@B1Gfootball )October 5, 2023 The #B 1G Reveals Future Football Schedule Format https://t.co/hfPUYhaiqX pic.twitter.com/ycxNCdE4dY!.?.!— Big 10 Football(@B1Gfootball)October 5,
2023 The #B 1G Reveals Future Football Arrange Format https://t.co/hfPUYhaiqX pic.twitter.com/9RMgmMovhI!.?.!— Huge Ten Football(@B1Gfootball )October 5, 2023 The #B 1G Reveals Future Football Schedule Format https://t.co/hfPUYhaiqX pic.twitter.com/44f4Es4ay6!.?.!— Big 10
Football (@B1Gfootball)October 5, 2023 The #B 1G Announces Future Football Schedule Format https://t.co/hfPUYhaiqX pic.twitter.com/nQGBeXpwxH!.?.!— Big 10 Football(@B1Gfootball) October 5, 2023 In the 2024 season, the brand-new teams will feature a number of away games, with Oregon traveling to Michigan, Purdue, Wisconsin and UCLA. The Trojans will play at
Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, UCLA and Washington. UCLA
will go to Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers and Washington. The
Huskies will travel to Indiana, Iowa, Penn State, Rutgers and Oregon.Each team will play 9 conference games per season, and teams will play turning opponents no greater than 3 times in a five-year period.The 2024 season
will be the very first with no divisions and will include 18 groups across the conference
. Since there will no longer be departments, the Big 10 championship game will feature the top 2 groups in the standings at the end of the routine season.