Gary Barta — the athletic director at Iowa — addressed when the B1G could have its mind made up on future scheduling plans for football.

Already, the B1G has announced the schedule for 2023, complete with East and West divisions for at least one more season. The B1G was always going to have to reinvestigate the conference alignment when USC and UCLA join for 2024, and Barta addressed that matter Thursday.

According to Scott Dochterman with The Athletic, Barta said the B1G hopes to have a decision on that alignment and future scheduling policies “by the end of the year.”

Barta also said the conference is utilizing analytics to run different models to try and figure out ways for every 4-year player to visit every opposing venue. The league is also investigating protected rivals with some teams potentially having more than one protected rivalry in a season.

“There are different scenarios where not everybody would have just one protected rival,” Barta said. “Some might have more than one.”

We’ll see what the B1G’s decision is down the road, potentially before a new year rolls around.