2021 Football schedule likely to change

[MplsGopher]

The 3 protected rivalry, no divisions idea would be awful for Minnesota. While we would get to play our rivals it would hand one of the toughest schedules to Minnesota year in and year out. Wisconsin and Iowa are usually upper tier teams and both Nebraska (most likely) or Michigan (Jug) also have an awful lot of resources. Wisconsin and Iowa are typically our hardest games, now sprinkle in even more games with Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan than we already have.

We already play Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska every year.

I'd prefer Michigan over Nebraska, due to them actually being a good school that is a peer to us academically, and having a historic rivalry trophy game.

So yes, that game every year on paper is an increase in SOS for us. And any scheduling method that has us playing Ohio St more often is also an increase in SOS for us .... as it would be for any other Big Ten team.

Penn St, Michigan St ... meh. No more difficult than playing Iowa and Wisconsin.

Also, most B1G teams have anywhere from 0-1 historical rivals. There would be a lot of forced ones like Illinois drawing Northwestern, Purdue, and Indiana every year based on proximity. This season excluded, that would be a cake draw.

Purdue is arguably Illinois' biggest rivalry game, and a trophy game. They take it every bit as seriously as the game with NW. Similarly for Purdue and its game with IU.

Your 0-1 is not accurate ether, except maybe for Maryland and Rutgers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Big_Ten_Conference_football_rivalry_games

 

[Clark W. Griswold]

I'd like them to go to 10 conference games rather than 8. The 4 crossover games would also help to balance the divisions. Penn State is in the same situation as everyone else in the conference. To get to the playoffs you have to beat Ohio State, either in the regular season or the B1G title game.

 

[Some guy]

I'd like them to go to 10 conference games rather than 8. The 4 crossover games would also help to balance the divisions. Penn State is in the same situation as everyone else in the conference. To get to the playoffs you have to beat Ohio State, either in the regular season or the B1G title game.

Penn state has an easier schedule than teams in the west IMO

it is harder to win the division but much easier to get second in that division

 

[PMWinSTP]

What is "have to"? As I've explained, four teams in each of the SEC and ACC are locked into yearly in-state, non-conf rivalry games, which defacto gives them +1 P5 games above the conference minimum requirement. That's why the SEC and ACC have always resisted going from eight to nine.

The ACC also wants to leave the door open for Notre Dame, and they likely could never play more than eight conference games, "needing" to maintain so many critically important yearly rivalries.


So long as it doesn't cost us TV money, going back to eight has far more positives that outweigh the negatives. I support it.

I said conference not P5. Not my problem, and it means 10 teams in each of those conferences normally don't play 9 P5 games. Gophs played 10 P5 games in 2017, and scheduled to again 2021-24.