Big Ten 2024 football schedule: 10 thoughts on travel concerns, competitive weekend and more

There is a digital analogue attached to the 2024 Big Ten football schedule, which was revealed Thursday afternoon. The 63rd edition was the winner of the 18-team conference, which will stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific next summer.

“Normally, we don’t get out of the late 20s or 30s when it comes to football schedules,” Big Ten Chief Operating Officer Kerry Kenney said. “It just shows the tremendous amount of balance we had to look at in terms of geography, travel and then competitiveness as well.

“Also from a numerology perspective, six times three equals 18. So I thought that was a unique nod to the fact that we’re dealing with a mathematical solution here rather than just putting the teams on the board.”

Without divisions for the first time since 2010 and the inaugural campaign of newcomers USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon, the Big Ten’s 129th football season will feature many tweaks and adjustments. It is also designed for entertainment and excitement.

Here are 10 big topics related to the 2024 schedule release.

Computerized Strategy: University of Southern California-Michigan

In perhaps the most anticipated game on the 2024 slate, USC will make its Big Ten debut on Sept. 21 at Michigan. It turns out the league was lucky and strategic with this matchup.

“It’s a great talking point to say that these two historic programs are opening in a historic location, and obviously one of our television partners would be happy to watch this game,” Kenney said. “But we also looked at it at a few different points within the timeline.”

The two traditional powers are competing on other high-profile programs before they face off. The Trojans open Labor Day on Sunday (Sept. 1) against LSU in Las Vegas, while Michigan hosts the Texans on Sept. 7.

“We felt through the lens of both individual schedules, it was a fair outcome in the sense that they both had the same lead and progression to get to that game, whereas if we dropped it into another schedule, in parts of the schedule, it was skewed too much in favor of one team versus the other,” Kenny said. .

Travel concerns

With a 14-week season, the Big Ten wanted to minimize travel impacts on its four West Coast newcomers and its 14 existing programs. With two scheduled byes, all newcomers chose either a bye or a home game after a trip to the Eastern or Central time zones.

“We were fortunate enough to make it 100 percent,” Kenney said. “No team is in the Pacific time zone, and none of our 18 teams have to play road games in consecutive weeks across multiple time zones.

“On the other side of that, the 14 Eastern and Central Time Zone schools that are going west, we were able to work and get eight of those institutions that made the West Coast trip. And then six home games coming off the West Coast trips.

The league has been able to do this work involving non-conference games as well. Purdue plays at Oregon State on Sept. 21 and has a home game against Nebraska the following week. Indiana travels to UCLA on Sept. 14 and faces Charlotte in Bloomington on Sept. 21.

Rivalry Weekend

For its first year of 18 teams, the Big Ten devoted its final weekend to traditional rivalries. They include Michigan-Ohio State, Indiana-Purdue, Wisconsin-Minnesota, Illinois-Northwestern, as well as the Iowa-Nebraska matchup on Black Friday. Washington and Oregon will also play each other, while USC and UCLA face non-conference foes Notre Dame and Fresno State, respectively. With Penn State and Michigan State not playing each other, that means there are some changes for Thanksgiving weekend.

“At least for the first year, we wanted to make sure we maintained as much similarity to the traditional end of the season that we’ve seen in the past,” Kenny said. “There were years where Penn State and Michigan State didn’t play at the end of the year, but it actually ended up with Penn State-Rutgers and Michigan State-Maryland that last week of the season. So we kind of turned to that quartet of schools to say that if it wasn’t It could be Penn State, Michigan State, Rutgers versus Maryland, let’s at least keep those four schools together.

USC-UCLA alternates between the penultimate and final weekends of the season depending on when the USC-Notre Dame game is played in Los Angeles. The Trojans and Bruins will meet over the weekend of November 23 in 2024. The league helped move the UCLA-Fresno State game to the final weekend to ensure UCLA does not play for 10 straight weeks.

Oregon-Washington

Oregon and Washington traditionally end their regular seasons against Oregon State and Washington State, respectively, but the Ducks and Huskies will play each other in the Big Ten final in 2024. But with uncertainty over whether the Civil War or the Apple Cup will continue, the Big Ten has been Create ten slots to give both schools this option.

“In the Oregon-Washington game, we were very up front with the leadership of both schools letting them know that in our best-case scenario from a Big Ten perspective, we would like that game to be at the end of the season,” Kenney said. “It aligns well with the tradition and competing in the other matches this weekend. But we also wanted to make sure that we understand where there might be some opportunities for them to continue to play those in-state rivals, if their considerations are aligned that they need to make that happen starting at Year 2024.

The Big Ten left it open on the second-to-last weekend for both schools and should want to extend that historic streak. After this fall, the Oregon-Oregon State series will have 127 editions while Washington-Washington State will play for the 114th time.

The running ghost

On October 18, 1924, star Illinois quarterback Red Grange helped defeat defending national champion Michigan by returning the opening kickoff 95 yards, then scoring on runs of 67, 56 and 44 yards, all in the first 12 minutes of the game. He added the fifth touchdown and passed for the sixth in the 39-14 defeat. This was done on the same day as the official dedication of Memorial Stadium.

On Oct. 19, 2024 — 100 years and one day after Grange’s legendary feat — the Wolverines will visit Memorial Stadium. A 12-foot-tall, one-ton bronze statue of Grange stands outside the west side of the stadium, and the entrance to the stadium is known as the “Grange Grove.”

“We didn’t force it to land on that date, but we loaded the computer with some information that will hopefully guide it to that date,” Kenney said. “So the fact that it was almost today, 100 years later, in the same location, with the same teams involved, was another great historical nugget that was achieved in this timeline as well.”

Friday, Labor Day, Black Friday

When the Big Ten worked with Fox to secure funding for Washington and Oregon, the league agreed to move games to at least nine Friday nights starting in 2024.

Some venues will not host Friday night games due to logistical challenges, but now that the schedule has been released, discussions will take place about which games will be moved.

“We are working collaboratively with television partners to understand which games are eligible to move to Friday based on existing parameters, non-negotiable games — which cannot leave on Saturday due to broadcast location — and selection process,” Kenney said. “That will be over the next few weeks, hopefully not months. But the thing that we hope will get done here sooner rather than later is determining which of those games will be eligible to move to Friday.”

This year, the Big Ten played an early Sunday game between Rutgers and Northwestern on Labor Day weekend. Next year, the Sunday game will appear in prime time on NBC.

“The goal is to capture every night of Labor Day weekend before the actual holiday on Monday,” Kenney said. “I think from a fundamental perspective, there will be one game on Thursday, one game on Friday, then one game on Sunday, plus the full slate on Saturday.”

Iowa and Nebraska have played annually on Black Friday since the Huskers joined the league in 2011. This year, Penn State and Michigan State are the second Black Friday matchup. The game that will join Iowa-Nebraska on Thanksgiving Friday in 2024 has not yet been determined.

Week zero

This schedule was the third iteration of the 2024 layout. The first was released in 2019 when the Big Ten had 14 teams, then the second was unveiled in June for the 16-team version. With Washington and Oregon accepting invitations in August, conference matchups were difficult to make early in the season. But the league worked Maryland at Michigan State in Week 2, which was on the original 14-team schedule.

“Both schools built their non-conference opponents, and when they were going to play them around the fact that they were going into early conference play as East Division opponents,” Kenney said.

Penn State with a home opener?

For the first time since before coronavirus, the Big Ten can have full control of its schedule, Kenney said. Without divisions, the league brass was given leeway to adjust matches and dates. As far as Pennsylvania is concerned, the schedulers responded to a perennial complaint.

For eight straight seasons and 13 of the past 14 years, Penn State has opened Big Ten play on the road. In 2024, the Nittany Lions start with two home games: Sept. 28 against Illinois and Oct. 5 against UCLA.

“It was very intentional,” Kenney said. “We had some great conversations with (athletic director) Pat Kraft along the way. He’s always been really great about providing Penn State’s perspective and letting us know that it’s important to their program and their community.”

Goodbye after Bama

Wisconsin has a big non-conference matchup, playing Alabama on Sept. 14 at Camp Randall Stadium. The Big Ten inserted a bye between the Badgers’ game against the Crimson Tide and their Big Ten opener on Sept. 28 at USC.

“Having that second bye and being able to maneuver between two really important games for Wisconsin was something that on paper is just a little bit of a defensible outcome, as opposed to having those games in back-to-back weeks,” Kenney said.

Flexible protection expands

The Big Ten was the first power conference to adopt a flexible buffer scheduling plan with an uneven amount of annual rivalry games. The league retained 12 schools, giving Iowa three protected opponents, Penn State none and the remaining schools either one or two.

The ACC and Big 12 came out with multi-year schedules this week, and the ACC protected 16 series while the Big 12 held just four. Among the power conferences, the SEC is the only one holding out on adopting a multi-year scheduling plan after 2024. The SEC is currently deadlocked between a nine-game schedule with three protected annual opponents or an eight-game schedule with a protected annual opponent One.

“It was really a nice nod to the flex protection efforts,” Kenney said, highlighting other leagues copying elements of the Big Ten’s scheduling model. “We kind of went out on a limb and did something different. We were confident and comfortable with the success that we believe has been achieved.” “At least on paper. And now, when we see others starting to do this as well, I think it really makes us feel like we’re moving in the right direction.”

(Top image: J. Fiume/Getty Images)