Gophers 2024 and 2025 Big Ten opponents announced.

[NoelarBear]

 

[fmlizard]

So does this mean The Chair is a protected game?

Please say yes! Nebraska has become my favorite football rival.

 

[btowngopher]

Wait you mean we dodge Michigan and OSU next year? Weren’t we never going to have that in our lifetime after our blown opportunity last year?

 

[fmlizard]

We're going to the Rose Bowl in 2024! Finally!

 

[BleedGopher]

See you in Pasadena Gopher fans in 16 months. LFG!!

Go Gophers!!

 

[ergopher]

So does this mean The Chair is a protected game?

Please say yes! Nebraska has become my favorite football rival.

Iowa and Wisconsin are our protected rivals, Nebraska is our two-play opponent for 2024 and 2025 under the flex schedule format.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

Wait you mean we dodge Michigan and OSU next year? Weren’t we never going to have that in our lifetime after our blown opportunity last year?

We travel to Ann Arbor and have OSU at home next year. We dodge both in 2025.

 

[GopherLaundry2013]

View attachment 25616

Cue all the "We're going to the Rose Bowl" comments

 

[Zeppelin Gopher]

Bummed they couldn't release the actual schedule, but this is good to know.

I will miss playing Nebraska every year...it's developed into a decent rivalry and is an awesome road trip for the fan base.

But overall, I'd say kudos to the Big Ten. This is an interesting and creative scheduling format.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

so Iowa is the only team in the league that gets 3 "protected" opponents, while Penn State has no protected opponents?

I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

I’m conflicted. I want to go to the rose bowl, but not half full at 12pm.

 

[pk2]

I’m conflicted. I want to go to the rose bowl, but not half full at 12pm.

In a fashion similar to NHL players not touching the Stanley Cup unless/until they win it, I’m not going to go to the Rose Bowl stadium unless/until the Gophers play in the Rose Bowl game.

 

[Cayman]

so Iowa is the only team in the league that gets 3 "protected" opponents, while Penn State has no protected opponents?

I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that.

Iowa is Nebraska’s only protected rival. Nebraska’s most sensible protected rival is probably either Iowa or Minnesota, and Minnesota and Iowa presumably wanted protected games against each other and Wisconsin, but I guess they decided to keep the border rivalry of Nebraska/Iowa and not annualize Nebraska/Minnesota and Nebraska/Wisconsin.

Penn State doesn’t have any traditional rivals in the conference. Apparently they’ve played Ohio State every year since joining the Big Ten. Penn State fans seem to care about playing Ohio State more than the other way around, and Maryland is probably the same way with Penn State. Also making Ohio State play both Michigan and Penn State every year could have been viewed as competitively unbalanced. No team has more than one protected game against Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State or USC. Although with the end of divisions, everybody might end up playing two of them every year on average. Minnesota plays Ohio State and Michigan in 2024 and swaps them out for Penn State and USC in 2025.

 

[Ope3]

Wait you mean we dodge Michigan and OSU next year? Weren’t we never going to have that in our lifetime after our blown opportunity last year?

2025 they miss Michigan & the Ohio St not next year. The "blown opportunity" part is there won't be a Big 10 West to compete for in 2025 as there was in 2022. That was always my take.

 

[swelna]

so Iowa is the only team in the league that gets 3 "protected" opponents, while Penn State has no protected opponents?

I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that.

I wouldn't be shocked if PSU was one of the main schools pushing for this. I don't really think they have a rival they want to protect each year, at least not one that feels the same way back. Instead of getting lumped with some meaningless rivalries, they just get to rotate everyone

 

[Ope3]

so Iowa is the only team in the league that gets 3 "protected" opponents, while Penn State has no protected opponents?

I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that.

I'm not even sure Iowa fiercely wanted Nebraska as a 3rd rival. Nebraska, I am sure wanted it, the Hawkeyes are just playing along.

With regards to Penn St. If you don't have a genuine rival, then as I have said multiple times ad nauseam to gin it up and require teams to play annually (or even 4 years consecutively) is not necessary.

I really like this format.

 

[fmlizard]

so Iowa is the only team in the league that gets 3 "protected" opponents, while Penn State has no protected opponents?

I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that.

Penn State doesn't have any traditional rivals in the conference.
Their slogan is "Unrivaled"
The Michigan State thing was always forced. I suppose Ohio State has some competitive tradition.

I think Minnesota could have just as easily been the 3 protected team and been with Nebraska, or for the conference to keep the whole Quadrangle protected. Iowa's officially recognized trophy game probably won out, plus the ability to schedule it the final week when the Axe game will be. But Minnesota has played Nebraska more than any other conference team has, many times more than the Gophers have played Ohio State over the past 120 years.

 

[fmlizard]

I'm surprised Purdue and Illinois is protected? I never knew of that as much of a rivalry.

Purdue and Illinois are the easy-schedule winners in this setup, as they get protected games with each other, plus Northwestern and Indiana.

 

[Xerxes_]

It's amazing how much tougher the schedules look when divisions are gone.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

my thing is more from a consistency standpoint.

I understand the arguments for preserving rivalries. I just find it very odd that the number of protected opponents within the conference varies to the point where one school has 3 protected opponents while another school has none.

did a check - Penn State has two potential trophy games. the Land Grant Trophy with Michigan State and yes, that crown jewel of trophies, the Governor's Victory Bell with Minnesota.

PSU will play MSU in '24 & '25 as a "two-play" game, and will play the Gophers in '25.

so why not just make PSU-MSU a protected opponent? I dunno.

 

[MaxyJR1]

I’m conflicted. I want to go to the rose bowl, but not half full at 12pm.

Game probably gets moved to Rams/Chargers stadium with our luck.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

and just for fun - a list of Big Ten Rivalry games from Wikipedia:

Big Ten conference rivalry games[edit]​

Game	Trophy	Team	Team	First Year	Latest Year	Meetings
Illini -Nwest	Land of Lincoln Trophy	Illinois	Northwestern	1892	2022	116
Illinois–OSU	Illibuck	Illinois	Ohio State	1902	2017	103
Illinois–Purd	Purdue Cannon	Illinois	Purdue	1890	2022	98
Indiana–MSU	Old Brass Spittoon	Indiana	MSU	1922	2022	69
Indiana–Purd	Old Oaken Bucket	Indiana	Purdue	1891	2022	124
Iowa–Minn	Floyd of Rosedale	Iowa	Minnesota	1891	2022	116
Iowa–Nebr	Heroes Trophy	Iowa	Nebraska	1891	2022	53
Iowa–Wisc	Heartland Trophy	Iowa	Wisconsin	1894	2022	96
Mary–PSU		Maryland	Penn State	1917	2022	46
MSU–PSU	Land Grant Trophy	Michigan State	Penn State	1914	2022	37
Mich-Nwest	George Jewett Trophy	Michigan	Northwestern	1892	2021	76
Mich–MSU	Paul Bunyan Trophy	Michigan	MSU	1898	2022	115
Mich–MN	Little Brown Jug	Michigan	Minnesota	1892	2020	104
Mich–OSU		Michigan	Ohio State	1897	2022	118
MN–Nebr	$5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy	Minnesota	Nebraska	1900	2022	63
MN–PSU	Governor's Victory Bell	Minnesota	Penn State	1993	2019	15
MN–Wisc	Paul Bunyan's Axe	Minnesota	Wisconsin	1890	2022	133
Neb–Wisc	Freedom Trophy	Nebraska	Wisconsin	1901	2022	16
OSU-PSU		Ohio State	Penn State	1912	2022	38
UCLA–USC	Victory Bell	UCLA	USC	1929	2022	92

 

[Plato]

my thing is more from a consistency standpoint.

I understand the arguments for preserving rivalries. I just find it very odd that the number of protected opponents within the conference varies to the point where one school has 3 protected opponents while another school has none.

did a check - Penn State has two potential trophy games. the Land Grant Trophy with Michigan State and yes, that crown jewel of trophies, the Governor's Victory Bell with Minnesota.

PSU will play MSU in '24 & '25 as a "two-play" game, and will play the Gophers in '25.

so why not just make PSU-MSU a protected opponent? I dunno.

As it has been mentioned many times, a team could choose not to have any protected rivals, two or three.
There was no nefarious double-dealing going on.

 

[MaxyJR1]

Home 2024

• 08/31 - North Carolina
• 09/07 - Rhode Island
• 09/14 - Nevada
• Iowa
• Northwestern
• Ohio State
• Rutgers

Home 2025

• 08/28 - Buffalo
• 09/06 - Bowling Green
• Maryland
• Michigan State
• Nebraska
• USC
• Wisconsin

 

[Ope3]

my thing is more from a consistency standpoint.

I understand the arguments for preserving rivalries. I just find it very odd that the number of protected opponents within the conference varies to the point where one school has 3 protected opponents while another school has none.

did a check - Penn State has two potential trophy games. the Land Grant Trophy with Michigan State and yes, that crown jewel of trophies, the Governor's Victory Bell with Minnesota.

PSU will play MSU in '24 & '25 as a "two-play" game, and will play the Gophers in '25.

so why not just make PSU-MSU a protected opponent? I dunno.

The easy answer is because either one or both Penn St or Mich St do not want to. Good enough for me.

 

[pk2]

I'm surprised Purdue and Illinois is protected? I never knew of that as much of a rivalry.

Purdue and Illinois are the easy-schedule winners in this setup, as they get protected games with each other, plus Northwestern and Indiana.

Purdue and Illinois play a trophy game, for the Purdue Cannon.

Here‘s a somewhat humorous article from a couple of years ago that goes into a little depth:

Better Know a Rivalry Trophy - The Purdue Cannon

Everything you didn’t know about the Purdue Cannon

www.offtackleempire.com

 

[highwayman]

so Iowa is the only team in the league that gets 3 "protected" opponents, while Penn State has no protected opponents?

I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that.

It’s a math problem. As a long time sports scheduler, it is a very complicated process to schedule 16 teams in a single table to play 9 games. Especially to make sure everyone gets alternate 5 game home schedules. Some one has to do three, someone has to do 0. I think this works well.

 

[Taji34]

I see the PSU having no protected rivals as a move from their AD to try to have a year where they don't play OSU or Michigan in the regular season. Their fans want them to play OSU regularly, but especially in the new format I could see them having one or both of those games as a protected game being viewed as a detriment to them getting into the expanded playoff.

Like, there is a world where PSU misses OSU and Michigan and goes undefeated in the regular season, and then plays the winner of the OSU vs Michigan game in the B1G championship. In that case, unless they get blown out, they likely will be within the top 12 when the playoffs happen.

 

[Plato]

In 2025 WI plays tOSU, USC, and Alabama.
The best way to entice recruits is to show them if you come here you will be playing in big games on a big stage.

 

[PMWinSTP]

So does this mean The Chair is a protected game?

Please say yes! Nebraska has become my favorite football rival.

No.