We are writing a lot about the new Big Ten football schedule.
Every Big Ten team knows which opponents it will face in 2024 and 2025, and the home and road assignments are also known.
We wrote that “The Big Ten is also doing away with divisions, something the Pac-12 and ACC have recently done. The top two teams in the conference standings are the two teams which will play in the 2024 Big Ten Championship Game in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The Big Ten has used a scheduling format called “flex protect plus,” in which not every team gets the same number of fixed annual opponents. Iowa has three fixed opponents — Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin — while USC has only one fixed opponent, the UCLA Bruins.”
We are looking at USC’s schedule and evaluating which games are especially important in 2024. We are going to come right out and say it: The season opener versus LSU in Las Vegas is the most important game for USC next year. Why, though? You’re probably wondering what would make us arrive at such a conclusion. We’ll explain below: