My Two Cents: New Front-Loaded Schedule Might as Well Start with Bucket Game

Going to conference games only is just the first step, so if we might lose other games, too, let be sure we play the Old Oaken Bucket game by starting the season with it.

Tom Brew | Jul 10, 2020

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The Big Ten took a huge step on Thursday when it announced that all fall sports, including football, will only play conference games this year.

That was huge, but it's also just the first step.

Every Big Ten team lost its three nonconference games, and for Indiana that meant home games with Western Kentucky and Ball State, and a road trip to UConn. What's left are their nine conference games, plus a 10th that likely will be added when the league does a re-do on the schedule.

The only formal announcement Thursday was the move to all conference games, but there's been plenty of other nuggets sneaking out when it comes to what happens next. Such as:

SPREAD-OUT SCHEDULE: The goal will be to play the 10 games over a 13-week window, with enough bye weeks worked in so that games can be moved on the fly if there's an outbreak at a school or two.
FRONT-LOADED: There is still a huge concern that even a 10-game schedule might not be possible if there's an explosion of positive tests across the league. In that case, the league will try to schedule the most important games early. That might be division games in a general way, but the rivalry games will become a huge priority.
BALANCE: Everyone will play five home games and five road games.

With all conference games on the menu, there's really not going to be any way to ease into the season. It could be brutal right from the get-go. For instance, Indiana would have had a nice stretch on its old schedule after the tough showdown with Wisconsin to open the season.

The Hoosiers would have been favored in their next SIX games before, the three non-con games plus Rutgers, Maryland and Michigan State. That could all change now. You'd like to think the schedule-makers will try to keep things balanced, but that's never easy, especially with several powerhouse top-10 teams in the league.

With the COVID-19 pandemic really not going away, there's just no way this season will be played in stadiums full of fans. If I had to guess right now, there won't be any fans at games — at least early in the season. So all of these games will be made-for-TV events.

So you might as well start out with a splash.

How about we START with the Old Oaken Bucket game against Purdue instead of end the season with it?

I'm all in.

Here's why. My biggest fear is that this season gets canceled at some point if things get bad. There's no way of knowing when that might happen, but say you only get to play five or six games. It would be a shame if the Bucket game WASN'T one of them.

So let's just start the season that way. To be honest, it would be nice to watch an Indiana-Purdue game on a sunny 80-degree day as opposed to 40-and-rainy, which it what we usually get in late November. I wouldn't miss that one bit.

And if it was the first game on the schedule, then there's a chance that both teams would be as healthy as could be. Losing guys to injury over the course of the season is part of the deal. It happened to Indiana a little bit last year, and it happened to Purdue a lot. Playing the game right out of the box takes a lot of that away.

The traditionalists will say that this is all wrong, that the Bucket game should always end the season. Most of the time I would agree, but 2020 is that once-in-a-lifetime anomaly. Everything is stupid about this year. We already missed the best of college basketball — the NCAA tournament — and even the Big Ten tournament, for that matter.

We can't have the same thing happen with football. So let's at least see if we can make the Old Oaken Bucket game happen this year.

Let's just start right there, and hope for the best in Week 1. A warm Saturday afternoon in Bloomington, with the bright sunshine glistening off those I's and P's dangling off the bucket.

I'm all in. How about you?

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