UNIVERSITY PARK — With a new 12-game college football playoff in 2024, many more teams have new opportunities and new hopes of getting into the playoffs for the national championship.
Every game, therefore, for these teams there is a chance of moving up, or down, or even out, on the tournament committee’s list of contenders.
The Big Ten, with 18 teams now stretching from Piscataway, New Jersey, to Los Angeles, will every week feature games that will not only have national attention but will also begin speculation about the conference teams’ playoff chances.
And every week there will be at least one, or even two or three, Big Ten games that will be at playoff level, especially with the addition of USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon to the conference.
In week one, for example, beside Penn State’s opener at West Virginia and UCLA’s trip to Hawaii, there is the ABC Sunday night game featuring USC vs No. 13 LSU in the Vegas Kickoff Classic at Allegiant Stadium.
Week two has Iowa State at Iowa (the Cy-Hawk game), Colorado at Nebraska and an earth-shaking Texas at Michigan on Saturday, Sept. 7, at noon on Fox. Both teams are already ranked highly, and both are, for now, expected to make the party. But a win here would be very impressive for either team.
The next week has Alabama at Wisconsin, Oregon at Oregon State, Notre Dame at Purdue, and Indiana at UCLA.
Wisconsin is not yet ranked, but this will be a big opportunity for the Badgers to make a move.
Week four puts Illinois at Nebraska, UCLA at LSU, Iowa at Minnesota, and USC at Michigan in the biggest conference game so far. It probably will not be cold yet, so the Trojans will not be too stressed.
In week five, Washington will take a long plane ride to Rutgers, Ohio State will go to Michigan State, Illinois will be at Penn State, Wisconsin is at USC, and Nebraska is at Purdue.
Moving into October, Iowa will visit Ohio State, UCLA will visit Penn State, and Michigan is at Washington in a replay of last season’s national championship game. Michigan prevailed in that one, and Washington will certainly have a circle around this date. Also, UCLA will visit Happy Valley for the first time since 1967.
Week seven will start to see things get real, and that will begin when Penn State plays at USC, Ohio State goes to Oregon, and Washington plays at Iowa. It is a good bet that at least four of those teams will not be able to afford a loss in week seven.
The week of Sunday, Oct. 13, to Saturday, Oct. 19, has Oregon at Purdue, Michigan at Illinois and Iowa at Michigan State, and then the next week it will be Nebraska at Ohio State, Illinois at Oregon, Penn State at Wisconsin, Michigan State at Michigan and Washington at Indiana — all consequential games.
Circle Saturday, Nov. 2, on your calendar. The Big Ten has Ohio State at Penn State, Oregon at Michigan, USC at Washington, Wisconsin at Iowa, UCLA at Nebraska, Northwestern at Purdue, Indiana at Michigan State and Minnesota at Illinois.
The next week on Nov. 9, Washington is at Penn State and Iowa is at UCLA, followed by UCLA at Washington on Nov. 15 and Oregon at Wisconsin on the 16th.
The final biggies will be USC at UCLA on Nov. 23, followed by Nebraska at Iowa, Washington at Oregon, Notre Dame at USC, Maryland at Penn State, and Michigan at Ohio State, all on Nov. 30.
The Big Ten Championship Game will pit the two top teams from the regular season, and the National Playoff will begin with the No. 5 through 12 seeds playing in the first round at the home site of the higher seed.
How many of the Big Ten’s teams make it into the playoff is yet to be seen — at least the two playing for the championship should be good bets — but any team emerging from that schedule should be ready for anything.
