The Athletic: Where the Big Ten’s football schedule debate stands as ADs, officials meet this week

BleedGopher

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per Scott:

Big Ten officials continue to discuss three scheduling formats that would end the current two-division format beginning in 2024, but it’s still not clear which option will win out.

Athletic directors and league officials will meet on Monday and Tuesday at Big Ten headquarters in Rosemont, Ill., and the league’s 2024 scheduling model will receive plenty of discussion. Although some officials are optimistic they’ll find clarity this week, it’s possible the decision gets kicked down the road yet again.

“We’ve been talking about this for some time,” Illinois athletics director Josh Whitman said last week. “There’s been a lot of different iterations. There’s been a lot of back and forth. I’m not sure what the timeline will be. We know that we’ve got to make some decisions here at some point, but I don’t know if that’ll happen this next week or in subsequent weeks.

“We’re all motivated to get to some structure in place to get some finality around what ’24 and beyond is going to look like. I’m optimistic we’ll see that done sooner rather than later. But I’m not sure what that exact timeline will be.”

USC and UCLA join the Big Ten in the summer of 2024, and there appears to be very little appetite within the league for the continuation of a two-division structure. As The Athletic first detailed in March, the three scheduling formats under consideration are the following:

Protect 3: Three permanent protected matchups, with games against six of the remaining 12 Big Ten opponents one year and the other six the next. Every four years, each team would play three teams four times and the remaining 12 teams twice.

Protect 2: Two permanent protected matchups, played four times over four years. Over the course of four years, each Big Ten team would play the remaining league opponents at least twice and two of those teams three times.

Flex Protect: A hybrid model in which each Big Ten team has one, two or three protected opponents. This format allows schedule-makers the most flexibility in terms of competitive balance, home-and-away rotations and the specific challenges around West Coast travel for teams playing USC or UCLA.


Go Gophers!!
 

These are exactly the same options as listed and discussed in another thread a while ago.


Protect 3 is the simplest, and by no means are the three permanent. In fact, they can be switched up after as little as four years.

Hope that's what they go with. Don't want Michigan to be one of our three, either.
 

Flex protect seems like a nightmare for the scheduler, but I guess that might be worth the flexibility for some teams?
 

Money talks and given all the $$$ the TV corporations poured on the BIG what option makes for the best TV will be the option the ADs "choose".
I have read the two secured rivals option makes the easiest scheduling.
That would mean MN, IA and WI would be guaranteed to play each other.
 

Flex protect seems like a nightmare for the scheduler, but I guess that might be worth the flexibility for some teams?
The only team that wants a protect 3 is Iowa.
But it’s the easiest to schedule.

Which is why they’ll go for option 3.
Which is “protect 3” but every 4 years they re-evaluate who everyone’s 3 is

Also:
Pretty good chance the the league expands again by the end of a 4 year cycle anyways. So they may as well choose the easiest thing to schedule.
 


Pretty good chance the the league expands again by the end of a 4 year cycle anyways.

I agree, and that likely means it'll be NFL style divisions at some point. Big Ten likely will be 20 or 24 teams in the not too distant future.
 

The only team that wants a protect 3 is Iowa.
But it’s the easiest to schedule.

Which is why they’ll go for option 3.
Which is “protect 3” but every 4 years they re-evaluate who everyone’s 3 is

Also:
Pretty good chance the the league expands again by the end of a 4 year cycle anyways. So they may as well choose the easiest thing to schedule.
You think that's the easiest to schedule?
 





Having schedule before, it is really easy to use the same model on a 4 year rotation than to come up with 4 different models. Which is what a lock 2 schedule does. Especially if you’re trying to build a schedule that reduces the possibility of 3 way ties where none of the 3 teams have crossed over with each other (which I assume is going to be a goal).
 




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