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Big Ten Schedule Announcement: Instant Reaction · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Friday, October sixth, I'm your host,
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  tom Or. The Maryland game is tomorrow, the game against Michigan in fifty
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  days. We're not talking about this year's schedule, however, we're talking about
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  next year's schedule. For what feels like about the eighth or ninth time in
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  the last four years, the Big Ten has released a bunch of new information
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  about an upcoming schedule. It feels like this one is probably going to happen
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  because I don't think they're going to add new teams before the twenty twenty four
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  season. But you know, at this point, can you be certain of
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  just about anything I would vote no on that we're gonna bring in our buddy,
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  Tony Gerdaman, a veteran of the schedule release Instant Reaction podcast Business and
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  Tony, This is a Week. This is the first of two parts of
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  the twenty twenty four Big Ten schedule re re release. All we found out
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  was where Ohio State is going to be playing home and away for the twenty
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  twenty four through twenty twenty eight seasons. And I guess my first the first
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  thing I noticed is there is a change of plans for where Ohio State is
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  heading out west for the twenty twenty four season. Well, yeah, and
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  they're going to be playing at Oregon instead of at UCLA. And this is
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  something that you and I talked about on both shows about once Oregon and Washington
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  were added, that they might throw Oregon a bone here and give them that
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  return game that Ohio State was supposed to play there in twenty twenty and never
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  happened because of the pandemic. Oregon plays at Ohio Stadium in twenty twenty one,
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  so this was an opportunity to make right on that one. So that
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  wasn't a huge surprise. But yeah, I mean it's pretty much an entirely
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  different away schedule for twenty twenty four than the previous release, the release from
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  four months ago almost to the day of the Flex Protect model, and so
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  yeah, I like, you know, they're getting that one out of the
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  way, the Oregon paying that one back and then proceeding from there. All
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  right, Now, let's look at the rest of that twenty twenty four schedule.
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  A lot of it is the same as it was not. You know,
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  this was not a complete overhaul, but the Buckeyes next year twenty twenty
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  four, a year when just about everything is going to change in college football,
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  We'll be hosting Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, and Purdue in
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  home games. Obviously, that is alphabetical order and that chronological order unless there
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  is a major change coming to the Michigan series as well away games at Michigan
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  State, at Northwestern, at Oregon at Penn State. So the Penn State
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  series will continue with Penn State going to Penn State next year, coming back
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  to Ohio State with for the Penn State game in twenty twenty five. But
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  then boy Tony one of the other not noticeable changes, no Penn State in
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  twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven. I know that we knew this change
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  was coming with the what the Big ten is calling the flex Protect eighteen model,
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  but Tony, the eighteen is in Roman numerals, so it's fancy like
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  the dates certain motion pictures were copyrighted. But man, oh Man, I
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  knew, we knew it was coming. But the idea of no Ohio State
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  Penn State game for the first time since nineteen ninety two is a little bit
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  weird. It's weird, but it's also probably a sigh of relief from the
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  Penn State and Ohio State coaching sides that they don't have to deal with those
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  two with each other when you're dealing with also USC and Oregon, Washington,
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  UCLA. But it is different now. I believe they'll play each other three
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  times out of every five years, so they'll still see each other plenty,
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  but it's going to be something that we all have to get used to.
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  It's going to create a hole in the schedule, but it will be filled
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  by the likes of Purdue, so you know, fantastic, But yeah,
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  that's one with only one protected rival for Ohio State. I don't think any
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  Ohio State fan. I think most Ohio State fans would have liked to have
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  kept Penn State. But I think anybody that is coaching Ohio State or coaching
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  State, it was like, I don't need to play those guys every year.
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  Well, if you look at it, I mean, if we're just
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  sort of going to go off of who's good this year, which is always
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  a tremendous way to project with incredible confidence what's gonna happen multiple years down the
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  line. But if you're going to sort of project, okay, here are
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  the good teams Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Washington, Oregon,
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  USC. You want to throw Ucla in there, you want to throw Wisconsin
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  in there? Maybe, Okay, there are a bunch of years where Ohio
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  State has you know they're going to have a couple. I mean, twenty
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  twenty four, you've got you play Michigan at home, you play Oregon and
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  Penn State on the road. Twenty twenty five, you got Penn State,
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  UCLA at home, Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin on the road. Twenty twenty
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  six, you got Michigan at home, Oregon at home, USC on the
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  road. Twenty twenty seven, you've got You've got sorry said Nebraska there.
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  Maybe they'll be good between now and then, who knows, A long way
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  away. You got USC at home, you got Michigan on the road,
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  you get Oregon on the road. Twenty twenty eight, you got Michigan at
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  home home, you got Washington at home, you got Wisconsin at home,
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  you got Penn State and UCLA on the road. I mean, looking at
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  this, I know that you know, sort of objectively, people understand that
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  the Big ten is adding a bunch of good teams. But there are years
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  where Rutgers is not on the schedule. There are years where in Maryland is
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  not on the schedule, and this has those teams have been replaced. You
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  know, there are other teams on there. They still play Illinois from time
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  to time, but there are now a bunch more big brand name kind of
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  games on there. Is it? I mean, is this a coincidence that
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  this is happening at the same time as the twelve team playoff expansion, because
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  it feels like you're much more likely to take a loss or two, But
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  if you're playing five really good teams out of conference or in your conference schedule,
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  you can afford to take a couple losses and probably still make that twelve
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  team playoffs. I'm wondering, is is this something that is just a coincident,
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  This is this is a timing up with the twelve team playoff, or
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  maybe this is a little bit strategic as well well. I think there's definitely
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  some strategy here, because I think even with the original flex protect model,
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  you could see that they were trying to protect as best as you could the
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  playoff potential for Michigan and Penn State, Ohio State, USC and I think
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  they're still doing that you can only do it so much. You've got eighteen
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  teams and at any time there's going to be six or eight of them with
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  playoff aspirations, so they're gonna have to play each other. But you look
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  at this schedule and I don't know if there's one year that is like,
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  there's no way that Ohio State is making it that year, because it is
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  they travel out west once a year, so there's no double dip there.
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  That was not a surprise, and they only play the West coast teams,
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  you know, like they don't get just bombarded. You're not having there's I
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  think one year in there where there's like three questionable tough road games. Maybe
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  it was you know, Michigan, Washington, and Wisconsin in twenty twenty five.
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  That's not ideal, but that's about That's about the extent of the difficulty.
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  And then we don't even wrap in the non conference stuff, which we
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  can talk about in a minute. But I think they've done as much as
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  they can and we'll see the other schedules coming out as well, because there
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  are gonna be some schedules, like you know, Indiana's not on Ohio State
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  schedule in twenty seven to twenty eight. But I'm imagining they have some where
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  it's like USC, Michigan, you know, Washington, Like what are we
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  supposed to do with this? But for Ohio State being Ohio State, I
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  don't see any schedule which is like that's three losses, you know, yeah,
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  And I mean that's a testament to what the Ohio State football program is
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  right now, because as you mentioned, you know, we're talking about five
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  pretty good to you know, kind of top twenty at least in an average
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  year kind of teams on some of these schedules, and they add in the
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  non conference and next year, let's just get this out of way. Next
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  year's non conference is a a bad non conference season. They canceled this series
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  with Washington, which you know now makes sense they're playing Washington as a conference
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  game. But that means that twenty twenty four is non conference schedule is Southern
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  Miss, Western, Michigan, and Marshall, so that you do not have
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  a marquee non conference game, and you know that's a year run again.
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  You're playing Michigan at home, you're playing at Oregon at Penn State. So
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  the schedules just fine, This is not a twenty twenty three Georgia or twenty
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  twenty three Michigan situation. The twenty twenty five season Hostate starts a home and
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  away with Texas. They're home in twenty five, away in twenty six,
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  twenty twenty seven to twenty twenty eight, they have a home and away with
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  Alabama again home first, away second. So you've got a schedule in twenty
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  twenty eight, and this is a long way away, and who knows what's
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  gonna happen with anything between now and twenty twenty eight, But twenty twenty eight
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  home for Michigan, home for Washington, home for Wisconsin, at Penn State,
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  at UCLA, at Alabama. I mean, we're you know, I
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  think there's the idea of the Super League coming and you're going to have all
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  nothing but big elite games coming at some point in the next twenty years or
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  whatever the current speculation is. You're starting to get in that neighborhood already that
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  you know, this is that's the kind of year that the way people talk
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  about, you know, an SEC West schedule, boy, that is that
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  is the reality of the way people talk about an SEC West schedule. Well,
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  and it is interesting that Ohio State has so many non conference games coming
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  against the SEC. Talking with Texas and then Alabama and Georgia after that.
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  I do like the twenty twenty six road schedule. Playing at Texas at USC.
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  You would expect those two programs to be in the playoff hunt and not
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  just being in the final four hunt in terms of the Final eight, having
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  a bye weeks and things like that, because you would expect them to continue.
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  Now's there's some assumptions going on there with Texas and USC. I do.
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  I do kind of think they are back, but they're just there's some
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  interesting, some really interesting uniform games throughout all of this that I think everybody
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  is looking forward to. And I was a little surprised that they gave us
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  all the way from twenty five to twenty eight, Like I was thinking maybe
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  twenty four and twenty five. But I guess since they have released this plan
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  of you know, the the you're playing everybody home and away at least once
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  over five years, it would make sense. It makes sense then to give
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  us the five year plan then. And you know, it's not like this
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  stuff hasn't changed before. I mean, this is the what this is the
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  what third version of the twenty twenty four schedule, and this is not the
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  final version yet with the dates and times and all that kind of stuff.
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  This is at least the because they had one prior to the USC UCLA editions,
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  and then they had a new one after that, and now this is
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  at least the third edition of that. And you know, twenty twenty they
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  went through multiple variations of the schedule, and so yeah, this is this
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  is not all written in stone by any means. But I think another thing
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  that's interesting to look at is there are always these places where Oldhusetate goes this
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  long stretch of time without traveling. So they have not They will not travel
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  to Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, or USC again after the season until twenty
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  twenty six. So your your trip to the Coliseum is gonna have to wait
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  a couple of years. Twenty twenty. No trip to Minnesota or Rutgers until
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  twenty twenty seven, so make sure you savor that trip to Scataway this year.
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  Won't get to do that again for a few years. No trip to
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  UCLA or Maryland until twenty twenty eight. You know, I'm more bummed about
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  the lack of a regular season Rose Bowl game than I am about a no
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  trip to Maryland until twenty twenty eight, but you know those are This is,
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  I guess, in some ways better because you don't have the you know,
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  the SEC problem where you've been in a league with teams for eleven years
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  and never gone to one of their campuses. That that's a thing that has
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  happened in the SEC. Based on the way they do it, it's better
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  now that you're going to everywhere. You know, over the span of five
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  years, you'll you'll get to every campus. But yeah, it is this
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  is gonna take I think a little bit of getting used to, Yeah,
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  for sure, especially when we got that initial schedule and thinking, oh,
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  looking forward to being at the Rose Bawl next year in twenty twenty four,
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  because that was the trip to UCLA was originally part of that that getting pushed
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  to twenty twenty eight. I do still like the fact that they are attempting
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  to get everybody to everywhere as quickly as they can and and so this is
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  the best way that the math works out. And so before the original with
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  the sixteen teams, you know, every four year player is going to get
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  to play every year every year. Now now you're gonna have to red shirt
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  if you want to do that, or perhaps there will be another pandemic and
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  you can get that free year back. But so they're not gonna be able
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  to go everywhere. So that's a little bit unfortunate. But if you ask
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  the Olympic sport athletes and they're going to tell you, I don't need to
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  go everywhere. Yeah. That There was another interesting article I read this week
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  about Washington State tracking. He was a Washington State crack cruck and field athlete
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  who talking about the stresses of travel and all that kind of stuff, And
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  yeah, that is a real concern and we'll see how that all gets sorted
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  out moving forward. So this is all all going to change next year as
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  the entire college football world changes. Big Ten schedule will change as well,
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  along with the twelve team playoff along with the conference realignment. All that good
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  stuff all coming next year. But first we might get to go to the
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  Rose Bowl between now and twenty twenty eight. That is a college Football Playoff
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  semi final location this year, and the Buckeyes looking to continue their unbeaten run
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  and potentially a shot at appearing in that Rose Bowl at the end of this
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  season. They'll be hosting Maryland on Saturday at noon at Ohio Stadium. We
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  will be there covering that for you have plenty of coverage from the Horseshoe and
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  they lead up to and in the follow up after that game. You can
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  find that all at YouTube dot com, slash Bucke, Huddle, and of
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  course huddle dot com. That will do it for today. Thank you guys
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  all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.