Big Ten to introduce 'Flex Protect Plus' football schedule model in 2024 - ESPN

The Big Ten in 2024 will introduce a football schedule model that includes 11 protected matchups across the conference, eliminates divisions and targets a robust overall rotation as the league expands to 16 members with USC and UCLA.

The «Flex Protect Plus» model maintains a nine-game league schedule and contains both guaranteed annual matchups and rotating ones. Beginning in 2024, every conference pairing will take place at least twice in a four-year span, once at each member school's home stadium.

The list of annual protected matchups, which features historic rivalries and trophy games, varies in number between Big Ten teams.

The protected games are: Michigan-Ohio State, UCLA-USC, Minnesota-Wisconsin, Indiana-Purdue, Michigan State-Michigan, Iowa-Minnesota, Illinois-Northwestern, Iowa-Nebraska, Maryland-Rutgers, Iowa-Wisconsin and Illinois-Purdue. The Big Ten on Thursday announced all opponents for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, although specific dates will be finalized later.

Teams also will have opponents they play in both 2024 and 2025 — called «two-plays» — that will change for the 2026-27 cycle. For example, USC and Penn State will play in both seasons, as will UCLA and Nebraska.

Big Ten chief operating officer Kerry Kenny told ESPN that overall flexibility became the biggest priority with the schedule model, which generated about a year of discussion. The conference considered models that included no protected annual games, or 1-3 protected games per school, before deciding that a varied approach could preserve the most important pairings and create the best rotation so players could compete in every stadium. According to Kenny, the Big Ten reviewed 171 different versions within the Flex Protect Plus model.

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