Buckeye Weekly Podcast: Who Will Ohio State Play In A New Big Ten Schedule?

Would like to read your ideas.

I don't mind Michigan, PSU and Nebraska but until there is a 12 team play off, as opposed to a 4 team playoff, I take competitive balance into consideration. I have Ohio State's 3 protected rivals as Michigan, PSU and Illinois.

Also, I listed to your future schedules starting in 2023. The one thing you need to be careful of in the 4 team playoff era, is making the Ohio State schedule way to hard.

First, thanks for reference to the list I sent.

I questioned if Michigan State was really getting two ‘wins’ with Maryland and Rutgers. I think many years these games could go either way.

I am posting about BIG scrapping divisions & new approach to scheduling that will be needed. I know this is about 3 weeks past when this was first an issue, but I think it is still something to be thinking about.

I have seen several reporters advocate for each team having 3 rivals that they play every year and then speculate about who those annual rivals will be for each team. This is the wrong approach because for just about every team there are 1 or 2 traditional rivals that make sense, and then a third team is randomly assigned as that new rival. So, for instance, I have seen OSU’s rivals listed as TTUN, Penn State and Illinois. Why Illinois? Why not Indiana, Purdue, Maryland, … They all make as much sense as Illinois (the Illibuck notwithstanding). This also can tend to unbalance the schedule, depending on how the rivalries are set up.


The right approach is for each team to have 2 annual rivals, and round robin home & home series with the other 11 teams. The rivalries would all be real (i.e. existing rivalries extended); it would keep the schedule more balanced; and each team would play every B10 team at least twice every 4 years. For example Ohio State’s rivals would be TTUN & Penn State. Michigan’s would be OSU & Michigan State. The attached file lays it all out.