The long, grueling wait to the next college football season has begun. It’s a painful seven-month stretch until toe meets leather on the gridiron again.

Fortunately, there are plenty of things to keep us distracted during that time. There’s still recruiting finishing up, spring football will start commencing soon and, of course, all kinds of things to discuss moving forward.

One of the first items people begin looking ahead at for the upcoming season is the future schedule. Every fan begins circling those important dates on the calendar, noting some of those make-or-break matchups.

Rather than break down each team’s schedule right now — don’t worry, that’ll come later — we’ve decided to take a brief look at the non-conference schedule for the B1G for 2019. We’re looking which conferences B1G teams will see most frequently, and which leagues will have brief encounters next fall.

As you might expect, the MAC is the conference found most frequently on the B1G non-conference slate. B1G teams will face off against foes from the MAC 10 times in 2019. The league with the fewest appearances? The SEC. The B1G and SEC will square off just once in non-conference play.

Here’s a breakdown of the B1G’s non-conference schedule by league opponent:

  • Mid-American: 10 games
  • American Athletic: 6 games
  • FCS: 5 games
  • Independents: 4 games
  • C-USA: 3 games
  • Pac-12: 3 games
  • Mountain West: 3 games
  • ACC: 3 games
  • Sun Belt: 2 games
  • Big XII: 2 games
  • SEC: 1 game

In total, the B1G will play 24 games against Group of Five opponents, nine games against Power Five foes and four games against Independents. There are also five FCS foes on the schedule in 2019.

The B1G takes a bit of a dip in scheduling from a season ago, when the league played 16 games against Power Five opponents and Independent teams. But that scheduling hasn’t helped much when it comes to the College Football Playoff, so this could be the better option.

Five B1G teams will not play any Power Five opponents or Notre Dame in 2019: Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio State and Wisconsin.