“We only get so much interaction with them (at this time of the year),” Penn State coach James Franklin said Thursday. It was unclear why Penn State doesn’t have a protected opponent.Ĭephas arrives > Former Kent State wide receiver Dante Cephas enrolled at Penn State late last month and already has impressed coaches. Teams will play every other conference team at least twice - once home and once away - in a four-year period. Penn State will play every other conference team in 2024-25. In 2025, the Lions will meet Illinois, Minnesota, Rutgers and UCLA at home and will have games at Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State and USC. ![]() In 2024, Penn State will face USC, Ohio State, Michigan State, Nebraska and Northwestern at Beaver Stadium and Indiana, Purdue, Wisconsin and Rutgers on the road. The Lions also will play Michigan State and Rutgers home and away in both seasons. ![]() Penn State will play the Trojans at Beaver Stadium in 2024 and at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2025. The Nittany Lions, the only Big Ten team not to have a protected opponent, will not play the Buckeyes in 2025 and will not play Michigan in 2024 when the conference eliminates the two-division format and adds UCLA and USC. UCLA will visit Michigan Stadium for the first time since 1996 and will host Ohio State for the first time since 2001.STATE COLLEGE - Penn State will not play Ohio State for the first time since joining the Big Ten in 1993, according to the conference’s list of 2024-25 football opponents that was released Thursday. USC will visit Penn State for the first time since 1994. Michigan’s 2024 trip to USC will mark its first since 1958. “You have to balance Eastern time zone schools, Central time zone schools.” “We needed to make sure that we did a good job of balancing not having really extreme travel distances for them, of one school having to go to their five furthest possible opponents in Year 1,” Kenny said. Kenny said increased travel and a third time zone factored into the 20 opponents, as did avoiding repeat sites from the 2023 schedule and maintaining the alternating five-four split - five league home games one year, four league home games the next. UCLA’s first Big Ten slate has Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State and USC at home, and Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Rutgers on the road.īoth newcomers will play every Big Ten school at least once by the end of the 2025 season, and every existing Big Ten team will play at either UCLA or USC during the same span. USC’s initial Big Ten schedule in 2024 will feature Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin at home, and Maryland, Northwestern, Penn State, Purdue and UCLA on the road. Penn State doesn’t have any protected matchups, but they see more teams three out of four years, the way that the model will be built moving forward, that might be a little more geographic to them.” “The more protected matchups you’ve included in the model, the less flexibility you had to create a really balanced model for everybody,” Kenny said. The Penn State-Ohio State game has often shaped the league and CFP races, but it will not be played in 2025 after taking place at Beaver Stadium in 2024. Penn State, meanwhile, has zero annual protected opponents in the new model. For example, USC and Penn State will play in both seasons, as will UCLA and Nebraska. Teams also will have opponents they play in both 20 - called “two-plays” - that will change for the 2026-27 cycle. The Big Ten on Thursday announced all opponents for the 20 seasons, although specific dates will be finalized later. 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 list of annual protected matchups, which features historic rivalries and trophy games, varies in number among Big Ten teams. ![]() 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 “Flex Protect Plus” model maintains a nine-game league schedule and contains both guaranteed annual matchups and rotating ones. 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.
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