So here is my stab at the conference schedule for MSU. Since the addition of Maryland and Rutgers at the start of the 14-15 season the conf schedule has been set up with 5 teams as home and home and the other 8 teams as either home (4) or away (4) single plays. Over the last three years, conf teams have played 11 Big 10 teams once as a home and home and 2 teams (in MSU's case Michigan and Ohio State) twice as home and homes. This is pretty typical of the other Big 10 teams where the teams they played home and home twice were typical rivals (Minn-Wisc/ Ind.-Purdue/ etc.). So now the unknown. Is the conference going to continue with protected rivals with scheduling? As it stands right now MSU has played each conference team 4 times (2 home, 2 road) and 2 "protected rivals" 5 times (Mich owes us a home game and we owe OSU a home game). The snag is that they can't simply reuse the 3 year model as that will skew the equal amounts of home contests for the "protected rivals". Here is what I'm thinking for MSU's schedule. The bolded teams I think are pretty solid and teams in parentheses are best guess.
Home: Penn State, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan, Purdue, (Northwestern), (Wisconsin)
Away: Northwestern, Rutgers, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Nebraska, (Indiana), (Illinois), (Maryland)
To me the bolded teams are locked in as those are the teams that last played a single play against MSU moved to the opposite side (ex: we played PSU on the road last year, so they will play at Breslin next year). Basically the unknowns are the 5 double plays. What I did was take the teams that we haven't double played since the initial year (14-15) and made them double plays ( Illini, Indiana, NW, Maryland) with the exception of Michigan. so doing that left one game to fill on the schedule which would have been one home game which Michigan is already slotted for a home game, leaving an unknown home team. Will the two "protected rivals" stay the same over the next 3 year cycle? Will one stay the same and a new "protected rival" replace the other team? Will there be two new "protected rivals"? We will learn a lot about that when the conf announces the teams. My guess is that Michigan will stay as our protected rival and we will double play them in 18-19 and 19-20 and we will have a new second team. My guess would be Wisconsin to replace OSU.