Big Ten football is gearing up to watch 4 teams compete in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff, but it is never too early to look ahead to 2025!

Last week, the conference revealed the full schedule for next season, complete with marquee nonconference games and the Big Ten Championship Game details.

Fans will get another 14-week regular season, leading up to the B1G Championship in Indianapolis on Dec. 6. Will Oregon repeat with back-to-back league titles? Can Ohio State finally get its return to glory in Lucas Oil Stadium? Or will some other program rise to the top in 2025?

While we wait on the Playoff to take center stage, get caught up on the outlook for 2025 with our key takeaways from the schedule reveal — knowing the transfer portal will impact and likely alter this way, way too early exercise:

Oregon’s path to a repeat

On the surface, Oregon has a pretty middle-of-the-road B1G schedule. The Ducks do have 2 games in conference action against Playoff teams this season, though 1 of those is Indiana at home, and it’s fair to consider the Hoosiers a wild card entering 2025.

But dig a little deeper, and there are some potential areas of concern. For starters: travel.

This season, Oregon mainly avoided a tough road slate in 2024 with 2 of its 5 road games coming on the West coast. Next season, the Ducks get just 1 of those road games out West in the season-ending rivalry vs. Washington.

Altogether, Oregon will travel more than 8,100 miles for its non-West coast road games. That far outpaces UCLA’s approximately 7,400 miles, with Washington and USC all comfortably under 7,000 miles.

We have yet to fully determine how significantly the distance impacts teams over an extended period of time. Oregon is so talented it likely won’t be as drastic as for other teams, but it would be unwise to consider it totally insignificant.

Then, there’s the way Oregon’s schedule ramps up at the start. The Ducks open the season with 5 consecutive games, including 2 road trips to the East. Three of the first 5 games are against power conference opponents and a 4th is against rival Oregon State, still a quality program at this juncture.

That opening stretch ends with a road trip to Happy Valley in a B1G Championship rematch vs. Penn State that is likely to be a White Out environment. The Nittany Lions also get an early-season cakewalk and bye week leading up to the matchup.

Nothing in the first 5 weeks of the season should derail the Ducks’ title or Playoff hopes. But stumbling early, even to Penn State, could put Oregon in a pressure situation to stay in contention for a trip to Indianapolis.

Curt Cignetti’s 2nd year gets much tougher

A lot was made about Indiana’s weak strength of schedule this season. One thing is certain: That argument will not hold up if the Hoosiers are back in the area of 10 wins next season.

Indiana does get a breeze of a nonconference schedule with Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State, but the league slate is a different story. The Hoosiers avoid Michigan and Ohio State, which is a plus. But things start with Illinois and Iowa right out of the gate before heading to Oregon after a bye week.

Then, the Hoosiers start a stretch of 6 games in 6 weeks, including the aforementioned road trip vs. Oregon and another road trip to face Penn State. Michigan State, UCLA and Wisconsin are the home games in that span.

Indiana will play 5 B1G teams that finished 5-7 or worse this season, but I’ll go out on a limb and predict a few from that group to rebound next season. And even if they don’t, the road trips to Iowa, Oregon and Penn State will prove plenty difficult to any team in the conference.

Ohio State’s outlook

Barring something unforeseen, all signs point to Ryan Day being back at Ohio State next season, no matter how the Buckeyes perform in the Playoff. It doesn’t matter how you or I feel about that decision, let’s just assume that’s the reality entering Week 1 of 2025.

That’s important because Day and the Buckeyes will be front-and-center nationally with a Week 1 opener against Texas. In The Horseshoe.

Also consider that Day will enter that game in 1 of 2 scenarios. A Playoff win over Tennessee on Saturday night would wrap up the home games for this season with a signature win, taking some of the negative air out of the 2025 season-opener. But losing to the Vols would mean OSU lost its final 2 home games this season and would send the Buckeyes into a dangerous season-opener with a chance for Day to lose 3 straight home games.

Considering the string of losses to Michigan, hitting the meat of the 2025 schedule with 4 straight losses in The Game and 3 straight losses at home overall would be … unbearable? However, it’s also worth noting the game against Texas is no must-win situation.

The good news is Ohio State’s other nonconference games are against Grambling and Ohio. And the B1G slate is not necessarily super treacherous.

OSU travels to Washington, Illinois, Wisconsin, Purdue and the season-ending rivalry vs. Michigan. Home games will feature Minnesota, Penn State, UCLA and Rutgers.

Combined with the opener vs. Texas, Ohio State has just 3 games against teams that ended the 2024 regular season ranked in the AP Poll. That’s the kind of opportunity Day cannot waste with Ohio State currently in a 4-year stretch without a B1G Championship. (Ohio state has never gone more than 4 years without a B1G Championship Game appearance, and a stretch from 1987-92 is the last time Ohio State did not at least share a league title within a 5-season span.)

Best path?

We’ll go with 2 teams, one that is coming off a resounding success and another looking for a massive bounce back. The team looking for a 2nd straight strong season will be Bret Bielema and the Illini.

Illinois is 9-3 entering its Citrus Bowl game against South Carolina, and there’s a chance for the Illini to do it all again. The nonconference slate includes a road trip to Duke, which will be a tough game facing Manny Diaz, but the rest of the non-B1G slate includes Western Illinois and Western Michigan.

As for the B1G schedule, Illinois will face 6 teams that finished this regular season with a record of 6-6 or worse. At Indiana, home vs. Ohio State and home vs. Rutgers are the toughest games based on records from this season, and road trips to Washington and Wisconsin will be challenging.

The other team to get a great path to a bounce-back season is Michigan. We know The Game is always a battle, but a road trip to face Oklahoma does not appear as daunting as this year’s game against Texas. The rest of the nonconference slate features New Mexico and Central Michigan.

The Wolverines must travel to face USC on the West Coast, but the other B1G road games include Nebraska, Michigan State, Northwestern and Maryland. That’s the kind of slate you want when you get 5 league games on the road, and it’s a golden opportunity for Sherrone Moore to provide a shot in the arm in Year 2.

Worst path?

Four teams will face teams that made it to the 12-team Playoff this year. That group is Rutgers, Penn State, Iowa and Purdue.

One of Purdue’s games is against Notre Dame, which is out of conference, so we’ll remove the Boilermakers for this discussion. Iowa and Penn State also have 1 of those games against Indiana, and I think it’s fair to list the Hoosiers as a question mark without Kurtis Rourke and some likely pieces heading to the NFL Draft.

That leaves Rutgers, and … whoa, buddy. One year after a gift from the scheduling gods (the Scarlet Knights did not face Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State or Indiana), Greg Schiano will get a deep gauntlet in 2025.

Next season, the Scarlet Knights face Oregon, Penn State and Ohio State. All 3 teams finished in the top 10 nationally this season and are likely to be the most talented teams in the B1G in 2025.

The silver lining, if there is one? Oregon and Ohio State at least must travel to Piscataway while the Scarlet Knights will head to Happy Valley.

But no matter how you slice it, Rutgers will need to navigate the games against Iowa, Minnesota, Washington (on the road), Purdue, Illinois and Maryland to get back to another bowl game.

Here is the full 2025 Big Ten schedule: