USC football: Big Ten still considering 3 football scheduling formats for 2024 and beyond

A final decision may not come until the summer

Big Ten athletic directors are meeting this week to sort out how the conference will schedule football in the future with USC and UCLA joining the conference in August of 2024. 

But a final decision still may not come until the summer, according to The Athletic's Scott Dochterman. 

Here are the three formats the AD's are considering, per Dochterman:

• Protect 3: Three permanent protected matchups, with games against six of the remaining 12 Big Ten opponents one year and the other six the next. Every four years, each team would play three teams four times and the remaining 12 teams twice.

• Protect 2: Two permanent protected matchups, played four times over four years. Over the course of four years, each Big Ten team would play the remaining league opponents at least twice and two of those teams three times.

• Flex Protect: A hybrid model in which each Big Ten team has one, two or three protected opponents. This format allows schedule-makers the most flexibility in terms of competitive balance, home-and-away rotations and the specific challenges around West Coast travel for teams playing USC or UCLA.

The Protect 3 model was reportedly the preferred choice of AD's earlier this year, but that may no longer be the case. 

The Big Ten currently has two divisions for football. They will likely be eliminated in 2024 with the adoption of one of the new formats. It's also likely that if USC has just one protected rival on its schedule, it will be UCLA.