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Barry Alvarez hints at release of B1G’s Champions Week schedule

Paul Harvey

By Paul Harvey

Published:

It sounds like teams around the B1G should find out who they are playing for Week 9 this weekend.

According to Jeff Potrykus with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez provided the release date on Friday. Potrykus is reporting that Alvarez informed Wisconsin’s athletic board that the schedule for Champions Week will be released on Sunday, including dates and times.

Alvarez also indicated that he has continued to lobby the B1G for the opportunity to play the Axe Game against Minnesota in Week 9 after it was initially canceled during the regularly scheduled portion of the season. That would throw a wrench in the “crossover” idea of the conference hoping to pit East division teams against West division teams, but it should not be too difficult to arrange the schedule.

Here’s what Alvarez had to say:

“Both Minnesota and us have lobbied to be able to play that game and continue the longest ongoing rivalry in college football,” Alvarez told the athletic board. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to get that done.

“If we play, the game probably will be here at Camp Randall.”

If the conference is able to reschedule the Axe Game, hopefully they will also reschedule the Old Oaken Bucket between Indiana and Purdue that was canceled this weekend. That game would be less difficult since it is essentially a crossover game.

An easy way to work around having Wisconsin and Minnesota face each other in Champions Week would be to reschedule the game between Maryland and Michigan State that was also canceled during the season. That would allow the conference to have four crossover games – not counting the championship game – in addition to the two division matchups.

Regardless of what they do, it looks like we will find out the schedule on Sunday.

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.