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USA Today Sports Media Group

Sport

Pete Fiutak

2020 Big Ten Football Schedule. 5 Things That Matter. Who Gets Missed? Winners, Losers, Changes

With the Big Ten announcing that it will play a ten-game, conference only schedule, what does it all mean? Who wins, who loses, and what’s next?

– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

Big Ten Football Schedule 2020

5. Big Ten 10-Game Schedule. The Basics …

The Big Ten released its 2020 football schedule. And the key parts are …

– Ten games, no non-conference dates. This was put forth before by the Big Ten, but now it’s settled. It’s all Big Ten vs. Big Ten battles spread out over the season.

– Unlike what the other Power Five conferences appear to be doing – kicking things off in mid-to-late September – the Big Ten is going to start right away on September 5th. Actually, it’ll all start on Thursday, September 3rd when Ohio State goes to Illinois. This allows each Big Ten team to have to built in weeks off along with an open date on November 28th for a possible make-up game.

– Also unlike the other Power Five conferences, the Big Ten is keeping its championship game for December 5th.

– Ohio State and Michigan don’t play on the final weekend. Go ahead and make your jokes about how the Big Ten doesn’t want Jim Harbaugh to end the season with a loss, but the October 24th date sets itself up to be something special, especially if it’s a night game.

– November 21st – the final weekend scheduled for the regular season – is all interdivisional games, and so is the first week of the season. The schedule is front loaded with divisional battles with the flexibility to fill in the gaps later if there has to be a week off.

NEXT: What Big Ten teams do the other Big Ten teams miss?

4. What Big Ten teams do the other Big Ten teams miss?

This is sort of massive. More on the winners and losers in all of this in a moment, but every team in a ten-game conference schedule misses three other teams. Here are the teams everyone missed with the original schedule, and the teams everyone misses now.

Big Ten East

Indiana
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern
Team Played In Modified Schedule: at Minnesota, Oct. 10

Maryland
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Purdue
Team Played In Modified Schedule: at Iowa, Sept. 5

Michigan
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern
Team Played In Modified Schedule: at Northwestern, Nov. 21

Michigan State
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Illinois, Nebraska, Purdue, Wisconsin
Team Played In Modified Schedule: at Nebraska, Nov. 21

Ohio State
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin
Team Played In Modified Schedule: at Purdue, Sept. 19

Penn State
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Illinois, Minnesota, Purdue, Wisconsin
Team Played In Modified Schedule: at Illinois, Nov. 21

Rutgers
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin
Team Played In Modified Schedule: at Wisconsin, Nov. 21

– 2020 Big Ten Composite Football Schedule. 10 Most Interesting Games

Big Ten West

Illinois
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State
Team Played In Modified Schedule: Penn State, Nov. 21

Iowa
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Rutgers
Team Played In Modified Schedule: Maryland, Sept. 5

Minnesota
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers
Team Played In Modified Schedule: Indiana, Oct. 10

Nebraska
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State
Team Played In Modified Schedule: Michigan State, Nov. 21

Northwestern
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio State, Rutgers
Team Played In Modified Schedule: Michigan, Nov. 21

Purdue
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Maryland, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State
Team Played In Modified Schedule: Ohio State, Sept. 19

Wisconsin
Original Schedule Teams Missed: Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers
Team Played In Modified Schedule: Rutgers, Nov. 21

NEXT: An all-Big Ten season looks AWESOME

3. An all-Big Ten season looks AWESOME

Everything is bad, everything is scary, everything is blowing up both literally and figuratively, and everything is just so unnerving in these painful and anxious time.

Take a moment. Take a deep breath, and enjoy the possibility that something in this world might not suck.

It might be delusional, but whatever – we all need a break. Imagine just how fantastic this all-Big Ten season could be.

Yeah, we’re missing Ohio State vs. Oregon and Michigan vs. Washington and a whole slew of interesting non-conference games, but for this one year, it’s fine. All Big Ten games, all the time, spread out over three months.

Let’s do this.

Ohio State might beat up on Illinois, but these two on a Thursday night in the first week of September? Cool.

– 2020 CFN Big Ten Preview

Indiana vs. Wisconsin on a Friday, and then every other Big Ten team going on Saturday while the other Power Five programs are waiting a few weeks to get their conference seasons going … oh yeah.

We might get Michigan vs. Ohio State at night. I prefer the noon EST kickoff tradition, but for this one year, I’m all for anything quirky.

Look at that October 24th. Along with the Wolverines and Buckeyes, we get the Wisconsin revenge game vs. Illinois, Iowa going to Penn State, and a likely shootout between Minnesota and Purdue.

On September 19th, Penn State goes to Michigan, Wisconsin travels to Nebraska, Ohio State goest to Purdue, and Iowa makes the trip to Minnesota.

And it goes on and on from there.

Think about it. In just a few weeks from now we might just get real Big Ten football, and then it could keep on going until December.

How much do we all need THAT?

NEXT: And The Big Loser In The Big Ten Schedule Is …

2. And The Big Loser In The Big Ten Schedule Is …

Start with this – who gets Ohio State when it wasn’t originally supposed to?

Purdue, COME ON DOWN.

The Boilermakers were also supposed to miss Penn State and Michigan State, but it would’ve been nice to have been able to play Maryland out of the four teams not on the original slate. At least they get the game in West Lafayette.

Illinois was going to catch the monster break by missing Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State, but it gets the Nittany Lions at home on November 21st. The Illini have a run of three road games in four weeks, but one of them is against Northwestern.

Northwestern dodged Ohio State, but instead of Indiana or Rutgers, it gets Michigan at home.

As if Rutgers didn’t have a rough enough go, it gets Wisconsin from the West, and instead of Illinois, Nebraska or Purdue, Maryland gets Iowa, and it later has a run of three games in four weeks. Two of those road dates are against Penn State and Michigan, with home games against Wisconsin and Ohio State right around them.

Wisconsin has three road games in four early on, but …

NEXT: And The Big Winner In The Big Ten Schedule Is …

1. And The Big Winner In The Big Ten Schedule Is …

Thank goodness Wisconsin gets the break of hosting Rutgers in Camp Randall.

Other Big Ten West schools have the right to be REALLY steamed right now. The Badgers were originally expected to miss four teams – Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State and Rutgers.

And they get the Scarlet Knights.

They do get Michigan and Iowa on the road, but missing Ohio State and Penn State is HUGE.

Penn State also caught a bit of a break missing Wisconsin and Minnesota. It misses Purdue, and it gets gets to play Illinois. The Nittany Lions get Ohio State and Iowa at home, and don’t have all that bad a road schedule other than Michigan, playing at Indiana, Rutgers, Nebraska and Illinois.

And, of course, the big winner overall is all of us.

The Big Ten came out with a real schedule with a real attempt at a plan to do all of this.

Coming into Wednesday morning. that wasn’t the given you’d think it might be.