Huge 10 sked: USC will open at U-M in ’24; UO-UW tops competition weekend

USC will go to Michigan in its very first Huge 10 conference video game, while UCLA will make 2 cross-country journeys and Oregon– Washington will be included throughout competition weekend of the Big 10’s 2024 football schedule, which the league revealed Thursday.

The league’s very first schedule with 18 members, each playing 9 conference video games, was formed utilizing the Flex Protect XVIII design, that includes 12 yearly safeguarded competitions and a robust rotation to prevent the long spaces in between pairings present in other conferences. The Big 10 likewise guaranteed that any group from the Eastern or Central time zone taking a trip to the West Coast, and any of the 4 West Coast additions– USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington– taking a trip east would have either a home video game or an open week following the prolonged journeys. Both the 2024 and 2025 seasons include 2 open weeks per group, that made the scheduling procedure simpler, Big 10 primary running officer Kerry Kenny informed ESPN.

” The 2 primary parts that we were asked to strike were the geographical and travel balance and after that likewise the competitive balance,” Kenny stated. “Certainly, in a schedule with groups that are this competitive and this deep there’s constantly going to be pockets of difficult stretches and something that, on paper today, based upon the method groups look, it’s constantly going to make it appear a bit harder or possibly a little simpler than it might play out.

” However our task as schedulers are to put as much of the concepts into the schedule that we’re asked to actually handle, and I believe we did that, particularly on the travel side.”

8 groups in the Eastern or Central time zones have open weeks after their only West Coast journeys, and the other 6 have home video games. The 4 West Coast groups will not play successive roadway video games in 2024. UCLA, which opens its season Aug. 31 at Hawai’i, will take a trip to Penn State on Oct. 5 and to Rutgers on Oct. 19, however will host Minnesota on Oct. 12 and have an open week after the Rutgers video game.

2 Pac-12 competition video games fall under the safeguarded classification– Oregon-Washington and UCLA-USC– and USC and Washington likewise will fulfill Nov. 2 in Seattle. Oregon and USC will not play each other in 2024, a choice Kenny stated was based upon producing a rotation where brand-new members would play existing members “more regularly and faster.”

” We have actually actually discovered that playing each other more, not less, and doing it as quickly as you can, to get these brand-new organizations to play in our historical locations and our existing members to play in these brand-new locations, that’s what assists make a conference end up being a more cohesive conference right off the bat,” Kenny stated.

USC will open Huge 10 have fun with Michigan (roadway), Wisconsin (home), Minnesota (roadway) and Penn State (home), while Oregon will deal with both Ohio State (Oct. 12 in your home) and Michigan (Nov. 2 on the roadway) in a four-week stretch. Washington’s very first November schedule in the Big 10 consists of each of 3 other West Coast additions plus a Nov. 9 journey to Penn State.

The USC-UCLA video game will happen Nov. 23 so that USC can complete its routine season by hosting competing Notre Dame. Kenny stated, “in an ideal world,” the Big 10 would like to have USC-UCLA on competition weekend, together with Ohio State-Michigan, Purdue-Indiana, Wisconsin-Minnesota, Iowa-Nebraska and now Oregon-Washington. UCLA, which generally plays a Pac-12 challenger in years where USC completes with Notre Dame, moved a nonleague video game with Fresno State to Nov. 30, and will open Huge 10 play in Week 3 when it hosts Indiana.

The 2024 schedule does not consist of a conference video game throughout opening weekend and just one in Week 2 (Michigan State at Maryland) and Week 3 (Indiana at UCLA). Kenny stated working around existing nonleague video games was an obstacle in crafting the schedule, together with sequencing video games versus forecasted Leading 25 groups.

” We’re making presumptions based upon groups on paper today and brand names, however that’s constantly a factor to consider,” Kenny stated. “However that’s constantly a factor to consider, attempting to spread out the stock throughout the season in a manner that works for each specific program, however likewise for the conference as a whole.”

The Huge 10 schedule consists of just one verified Friday video game in Iowa-Nebraska, which has actually generally occurred the day after Thanksgiving and will take place Nov. 29, 2024. However the Big 10 will fill extra Friday slots, in spite of some opposition from its coaches since of conventional high school video games.

” Technically we can go to a video game a week on Fridays,” Kenny stated. “Whether that really gets triggered is all based on a few of the discussions in between us, and mostly Fox is our Friday partner. However the capability to have a video game every week on a Friday would exist with this brand-new schedule.”

Kenny stated the Huge 10 most likely would reveal its 2025 schedule throughout the 2024 season.