Commissioner Jim Delany touted a “1910” scheduling model Friday at Big Ten media days: one Power Five nonconference game, nine conference games, one conference championship game, zero games outside the Bowl Subdivision.
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BYU and Notre Dame will count as Power Five schools. “We have the nine conference games”.
Delany stopped short of saying his schools will be penalized for not following the Big Ten’s strength of schedule commitment. The Big Ten also reached out to the NFL to learn how teams managed medical personnel and communication both on the sidelines and in coaching booths. We have a conference championship and we have the commitment to play only FBS opponents. The lack of FCS games will help the Big Ten’s strength of schedule and national perception, but the gap between bottom-level FBS teams and top-tier FCS teams may be nonexistent. The ACC is also staying at eight games and requires a Power Five opponent.
Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby has said his league is not about scheduling requirements on its members. “Others believe a lighter preseason does that best”. “Last year, there was an incident at Michigan and they spoke to it and I think there were eyes that didn’t grasp fully, in real time, what was occurring”.
The Big Ten’s move away from no longer scheduling FCS opponents has been discussed openly for a few years now, and now it will be the standard operating procedure.
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Chicago – Ever since the announcement was made that college football would be entering the playoff era, the Big Ten has endorsed the idea that strength of schedule should be a key component to deciding on the four teams that make up the playoff field. “There are about eight paragraphs that deal with the issue of when resumes look similar”.
