The Big Ten announced the conference opponents for each of its’ 16 programs for the 2024 and 2025 seasons on Thursday afternoon.
Among the notable features of the Big Ten’s new model is that the conference with the addition of UCLA and USC will officially be divsionless. Without divisions, the conference’s top two teams by conference record will battle it out in Indianapolis yearly for the Big Ten Championship.
It also marked the debut of the Flex Protect Plus model which features nine conference games for each school per season with at least one two-way opponent and for most schools, at least one protected opponent.
A two-way opponent will be an opponent that each Big Ten school faces in 2024 and 2025. That opponent will then be rotated for another opponent in 2026 and 2027, the cycle will then continue.
Protected opponents are as traditionally known, opponents that each program will be guaranteed to face once a season.
Each Big Ten school except Penn State has a protected opponent. The Nittany Lions have three Flex Protect Plus instead. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Iowa only has protected opponents, guaranteed to play Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin yearly with no two-play opponents.
The other 14 schools have some combination of two-play opponents and protected opponents. You can see the full two-play opponents and protected opponents for each program below.
The Big Ten came to the 2024 and 2025 opponents for each conference member after “careful consideration and constructs” which included the following;
- “Maintaining control and flexibility as the college football postseason format evolves, with the goal to create access for programs into an expanded College Football Playoff.
- Balance of annual travel by distance, regions of the conference, and time zones.
- Balance of historic competitiveness and recent competitive trends, including home/away balance of traditionally competitive schools.
- Balance and maximization of television inventory each season.”
The highlight of course of the new 2024 and 2025 conference opponents is the additions of UCLA and USC. USC and UCLA in their first two years will get a tour of some of the Big Ten’s best. UCLA is set for matchups against Iowa, and Michigan while going on the road to face Nebraska and Ohio State in 2024 while in 2025 they’ll face Michigan State, and Penn State, and travel to take on Wisconsin.
USC on the other hand will face Penn State on the road in 2024 while hosting Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In 2025, they’ll host Penn State, Michigan State, and Nebraska in Southern California while heading to Madison to take on the Badgers. These of course are just a taste of some of the games that each program will face and not the entire list of Big Ten opponents for each in 2024 and 2025.
The Big Ten also states that the game dates for the 2024 Big Ten schedule will be released later this year.