We officially know what Big Ten football will look like once USC and UCLA join the league in 2024.
The Big Ten revealed its new scheduling model for the 2024 and 2025 seasons on Thursday, which will be the first two seasons with USC and UCLA in the conference. The Big Ten will move away from the East and West Divisions and will use the “two-play opponents” model which essentially means you will play these three teams in both 2024 and 2025. Part of that is the inclusion of protected rivals which will be games that remain in place annually after the 2025 season (i.e. Michigan-Michigan State, Michigan-Ohio State, Iowa-Wisconsin, etc.).
This new model was what was expected and is something I even speculated about earlier this year when I tried to predict who each team would get as their protected rivals. I’m back again to see how my predictions compared to the official rotations released on Thursday, and to offer up my general thoughts on each pairing below: