With the Big Ten Conference on the brink of becoming a 16-school coast-to-coast behemoth on July 1, 2024 with the additions of UCLA and USC, a list of nine foes for each football team for 2024 and 2025 was recently announced on the Big Ten Network (BTN).
Starting with a Nebraska program hoping to begin a return to relevancy under head coach Matt Rhule, the ‘Huskers will have four conference games in Lincoln, with five Big Ten road trips in 2024. NU will see only original schools from the long-time 10-school iteration of the conference, with Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan State, and Wisconsin visiting Memorial Stadium.
Nebraska will travel to the Rose Bowl to play the UCLA Bruins, along with treks to Iowa, Northwestern, Penn State, and Purdue.
In 2025, Nebraska will have five Big Ten home games, with Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Rutgers, and UCLA all-Lincoln bound. The Cornhuskers travel to Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio State, and USC.
For Rhule’s first season at Nebraska, this fall, additional details on the ‘Huskers schedule continue to be released, with NU playing two straight Power 5 foes on the road to start the season, with both games on the FOX Network.
On Thursday, August 31st, Minnesota hosts Nebraska at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, with a 7 o’clock kickoff in the Big Ten opener for both. The following Saturday, September 9th, Nebraska will play prior conference rival Colorado Buffaloes in an 11 o’clock kickoff from Folsom Field in Boulder. The game will feature a pair of first-year head coaches, with Rhule matching wits with NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders of CU.
Nebraska’s Black Friday matchup with the Iowa Hawkeyes will be played on November 24th at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, with an 11 o’clock kickoff on CBS. Nebraska will have home games with Northern Illinois (September 16th / 6 PM / FS1) and the Homecoming game with Purdue at either 11 AM, 2:30 PM, or 3 PM. Meanwhile, Nebraska’s game at Illinois on Friday, October 6th will air on FS1, with a kick time of 7 PM.
Turning eastward to the University of Iowa, the Hawkeyes 2024 Big Ten foes will feature Maryland, Nebraska, UCLA, and Wisconsin traveling to Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, with the U of I traveling to play at Illinois, Ohio State, Minnesota, Rutgers, and USC. In non-conference action, the Hawkeyes will host Illnois State and Iowa State in addition to Troy.
For 2025, Iowa travels to Indiana, Nebraska, Purdue, and Wisconsin in Big Ten action, with Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, and Penn State heading to Iowa City. Florida Atlantic and UMass head to Kinnick while the Hawkeyes make the trip to Ames to play the Iowa State Cyclones.
Both USC and UCLA will be tested by traditional Big Ten powerhouse Michigan in the L.A. schools first year in conference play, with the Bruins heading to Ann Arbor, with the Wolverines traveling to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a showdown with the Trojans. USC and UCLA were named one of 11 “protected rivalries” that will be played every year as the 2024 scheduling formula takes hold. Also in 2024, Ohio State will play UCLA in the Rose Bowl. The Buckeyes play host to USC in 2025.
USC, in 2024 and 2025, will have a home-and-home series with Penn State and Wisconsin, with UCLA drawing home-and-home’s with Nebraska and Rutgers.
UCLA will host Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, and USC in 2024, with road trips to Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, and Rutgers. USC, in its first year in conference play, will welcome Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin at the L.A. Coliseum, while traveling to Maryland, Northwestern, Penn State, Purdue, and UCLA.
The departure of UCLA and USC will at the very least drop the Pac-12 Conference membership to 10 schools, with rumors continuing to fly concerning potential movement out of the conference from those schools.
At Colorado, the Buffaloes are believed to be listening to the Big 12 Conference about potentially rejoining that growing group. Of particular concern for Pac-12 members has been the inability to lock in a new television contract, as the current deal expires after the 2023-2024 school year.
On Wednesday, the University of Arizona hosted a Future of College Athletics Summit in Washington, DC, with President Bobby Robbins, speaking with reporters afterwards, indicated his desire to keep a ‘presence’ in Southern California, which could be considered a lean toward San Diego State. Robbins also specifically mentioned Texas, as Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff visited Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas earlier this year. However, getting that coveted television contract for 2024 and beyond looms as most important for the conference, especially with the Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12 recently signing lucrative contracts through the rest of the decade.
Following UCLA and USC’s move to the Big Ten, remaining Pac-12 members will be Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Cal, Stanford, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State.