Ad Disclosure
247Sports lists teams with toughest, easiest schedules in the B1G in 2021
Published:
We’ve reached the schedule breakdown portion of the summer months. With the start of the college football season rapidly approaching, it’s fun to take a look at which teams have the easiest, and most difficult, paths to a conference title.
247Sports recently weighed in on the B1G schedules for the 2021 season, ranking all 14 schedules from toughest to easiest. The most interesting aspect, of course, is which team in the conference is considered to have the most difficult 12-game slate, and which team should breeze through the year.
Rutgers is tabbed as the team with the most difficult schedule in 2021. After a relatively vanilla nonconference start with games against Temple, Syracuse and Delaware, the Scarlet Knights will play Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State and Northwestern before reaching its first off week of the year.
Greg Schiano’s bunch will endure another difficult three-game stretch in November, playing Wisconsin, Indiana and Penn State in consecutive weeks before closing out against Maryland. It’s a pretty daunting task for Rutgers this fall.
The team with the easiest schedule? Ohio State.
The Buckeyes do open the year in tough fashion, traveling to Minnesota in Week 1 then hosting Oregon the following Saturday for a difficult two-week stretch. After that, Ohio State will play Tulsa, Akron, Rutgers and Maryland before an idle weekend.
A tough two-game stretch against Indiana and Penn State — the two biggest challengers in the East — awaits Ohio State after the bye week. Then the final four-game stretch includes matchups against Nebraska, Purdue, Michigan State and Michigan, teams that all finished with losing record last fall.
247Sports ranked the schedules of all 14 B1G teams. You can view the complete list here.
Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB