What We Know About the New Big Ten Football Schedule

Everything we know right now about the 2020 Big Ten football season.

The Big Ten plans an eight-game schedule and a unique "Championship Week" for its reformatted 2020 football season, which the conference announced Wednesday.

Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, who served on the scheduling committee of the Big Ten's Return to Competition task force, said that further scheduling details will be released this week. In the meantime, here's what we know about the upcoming football season.

An eight-game regular season

Big Ten teams will play eight regular-season games beginning Oct. 24. That will include six games within the division and two crossover games. There will be four home games and four away games.

Alvarez said that one scheduling model included an Oct. 17 start date and a bye week. But conference presidents chose to start a week later "to allow us to be better prepared."

The conference likely will take the original Big Ten schedules and remove one crossover game. For Penn State, that means Northwestern, Iowa or Nebraska will be off the schedule.

Mark Wogenrich

"Championship Week"

The Big Ten plans not only a championship game Dec. 19 but also a companion slate of crossover games, pushing each team's schedule to nine. The series will feature crossover matchups of each division's second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, sixth- and seventh-place teams that will be played prior to the championship.

"We wanted to make the season meaningful," Alvarez said. "You have a number of players trying to make a decision whether they're opting in or they're opting out. So we wanted to make it a meaningful season for all of them. Nine games was what we felt was very meaningful, very unique in how we decided on playing the ninth game."

College Football Playoff eligibility

Will the Big Ten be eligible for the College Football Playoff? Northwestern Athletic Director Jim Phillips called it "a real possibility." Setting dates for the restart and title game to fit within the CFP schedule were paramount in the Big Ten's football plan.

Phillips said the schedule, which would culminate with the Big Ten title game Dec. 19, allows for the conference to be in consideration for the Dec. 20 CFP announcement. It also allows the Big Ten to be part of whatever bowl structure is available.

Friday Night Lights?

Alvarez said that the Big Ten's schedule includes the "flexibility" to hold games on Friday nights or even a Monday night. The conference's television partners, including Fox, asked for such scheduling flexibility, Alvarez said.

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