Angelique S. ChengelisThe Detroit News
Big Ten football divisions will be no more, beginning in 2024, when the conference officially expands to 16 teams with the additions of USC and UCLA. That means the conference champion will be determined with the top two in the standings meeting in the title game.
The Big Ten on Thursday announced the 2024 and 2025 conference schedules, although no dates and kickoff times were announced. Teams will continue to play nine conference games. Not surprisingly, among the guaranteed annual protected matchupsare Michigan-Michigan State and Michigan-Ohio State.
In 2024, Michigan plays a regular-season game at USC for the first time since 1957, and UCLA will play at Michigan Stadium. The Wolverines’ road games will be at Ohio State, Illinois and Rutgers, as well as USC and will have Michigan State, Maryland, Minnesota, Wisconsin and UCLA at home.
In 2019, Michigan dropped a home-and-home series with UCLA that would have been played in 2022 and 2023. The Wolverines open 2024 with three non-conference games at Michigan Stadium, including Texas on Sept. 7.
Michigan State in 2024 will travel to Michigan, Maryland, Nebraska and Penn State, while hosting Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Purdue and Rutgers. The Spartans will not face either of the two new conference additions until 2025, when they travel to USC. Michigan in 2025 will not play either of the southern California teams.
With the additions of USC and UCLA, announced last summer, Big Ten officials began tinkering with future scheduling. Elimination of divisions is a major result and eliminates what had been seen as competitive imbalance with the East Division, which includes Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State, far more challenging than the West.
New Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti explained the decision to eliminate divisions.
"It gets back to the ability to see more opponents; you start thinking about competitive balance inside the conference and how to manage that," Petitti said Thursday on the Big Ten Network. "This format eliminates some of those concerns and takes that off the table, really. That's a big part of it."
Michigan and Ohio State play the final Saturday of the regular season, and without divisions, there's now a possibility the rivals could meet two straight weekends. OSU athletic director Gene Smith, who appeared Thursday on BTN, said he and Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel spoke about the potential for a postseason rematch.
"We agreed that for the betterment of the whole, the betterment of the league relative to our overall scheduling format and our television partners, that, at the end of the day, we needed to accept that as a possibility," Smith said, referring to Manuel.
The Big Ten is utilizing the “Flex Protect Plus” model, with a combination of protected opponents and rotating opponents. Teams will play every other conference opponent at least twice — home and away — in a four-year period.
Other guaranteed annual protected matchups include Illinois-Northwestern, Illinois-Purdue, Indiana-Purdue, Iowa-Minnesota, Iowa-Nebraska, Iowa-Wisconsin, Maryland-Rutgers, Minnesota-Wisconsin, and UCLA-USC.
