After adding Oregon and Washington to its ranks, the Big Ten on Thursday announced the newest version of its future football schedules for the 2024 to 2028 seasons.
The conference had released a schedule format in June, but with Oregon and Washington joining its ranks, another release was necessary.
This most recent schedule will be formatted with what the conference is calling the «Flex Protect XVII» model, which will feature a combination of protected opponents and rotating opponents for the universities. «We added two more [teams], but that changes everything.
We got to go back to the drawing board and do this rotation again,» Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said on a conference call. «We're staying with a lot of the principles that were in place when we did the original announcement back with USC and UCLA being integrated, the core concepts, competitive balance, connecting the whole conference.