Ad Disclosure
Hickey: The 1 scheduling element the SEC got right — and the B1G should copy
By Alex Hickey
Published:
The SEC was rightfully battered like a piñata when it announced that the conference schedule would remain at 8 games when the league expands to 16 teams in 2024.
The Big Ten, Big 12 and remnants of the Pac-12 will all continue playing 9-game schedules. The ACC has an 8-game schedule, but 5 teams face Notre Dame each season — in essence, that amounts to a bonus conference game.
As the conference at the top of the mountain, it’s clear the SEC wants to keep things that way in an attempt to stuff as many teams as possible into the 12-team CFP.
But that’s neither here nor there.
When the SEC actually released the 2024 schedule this week, it unveiled a clever scheduling model that’s worthy of respect. And worthy of copying.
The SEC is dividing its 2024 schedule as equitably as possible, splitting the teams into 2 pools based on their combined records in conference play since 2012. Each team plays 4 opponents from the top 8, and 4 opponents from the bottom 8.
If you apply a similar model to the Big Ten for the upcoming 2024 and 2025 schedules, the results are surprisingly close to matching the SEC’s. Whether that is by design or accident, the B1G office did a pretty good job of making things even.
But it didn’t do a perfect job.
The B1G pools
For the Big Ten, it only makes sense to backdate conference records to 2014, when Maryland and Rutgers joined the league. And just as the SEC is doing with Texas and Oklahoma, that means USC and UCLA will be measured by how they did in Pac-12 play.
Pool A
- Ohio State: 69-6 (.920 winning percentage)
- Michigan: 54-22 (.710)
- Wisconsin: 54-22 (.710)
- USC: 54-23 (.701)
- Iowa: 51-27 (.654)
- Penn State: 49-30 (.620)
- Michigan State: 43-34 (.558)
- Northwestern: 46-39 (.541)
Pool B
- UCLA: 39-40 (.494)
- Minnesota: 38-46 (.452)
- Nebraska: 30-48 (.385)
- Purdue: 29-47 (.381)
- Indiana: 24-53 (.312)
- Illinois: 24-54 (.308)
- Maryland: 23-52 (.307)
- Rutgers: 13-66 (.165)
As it happens, the B1G’s schedule is nearly as balanced as the SEC’s.
When 2024 and 2025 are combined, 12 teams will have a perfect split — 9 games against Pool A teams and 9 games against Pool B teams. In most cases, it’s identical to the home and road split — 5 games one year and 4 in the other.
The exception to that rule is Michigan State.
Life sets up well for the Spartans in 2024 with 3 Pool A opponents, but the battle is straight uphill the next year with 6 Pool A teams. That also coincides with the Spartans playing 5 conference road games.
If you’re banking on Michigan State revival, 2024 seems like a good bet — followed by a regression to whatever last season was in ’25.
Two B1G teams are living on easy street, relatively speaking. Both Michigan and Northwestern play just 8 Pool A games in ’24 and ’25.
That’s understandable for the Wildcats, who have fallen on hard times the past 2 seasons. They could use a break. Northwestern plays 3 Pool A teams in 2024 followed by 5 in 2025.
It’s a bit disappointing, though, that Michigan has a slightly easier go of it than its championship-contending peers. The Wolverines face 4 Pool A teams in both ’24 and ’25. And Northwestern, which is trending the wrong direction, is 1 of those teams — at Michigan Stadium, no less.
The league office seemingly did the Wolverines a favor, though maybe that’s no coincidence. The same argument can be made for Georgia’s 2024 SEC schedule.
Math savants will recognize that the presence of 2 teams with 8 Pool A games means that there are 2 teams that play 10 Pool A games.
For a pair of programs, the degree of difficulty in ’24 and ’25 will be slightly tougher than everybody else. And their identity certainly is not expected: Illinois and Minnesota.
The Illini haven’t won the Big Ten since 2001, and the Gophers haven’t achieved the feat since 1967. Yet they’ll both be playing 1 more Pool A opponent than anybody else in the B1G. The Gophers have 5 Pool A games in both ’24 and ’25, while the Illini play 6 Pool A games in 2024 before dropping to 4 in 2025.
Minnesota will have a hard time ducking difficult schedules in the future. Iowa and Wisconsin are permanent opponents, which guarantees 2 Pool A games every season. And since the Gophers are a Pool B team themselves, there are only 7 opponents to draw from.
As currently constructed, Illinois is also guaranteed a Pool A opponent each season — though fortunately for the Illini, that opponent is Northwestern. So, the degree of difficulty is not the same as Minnesota’s even if they appear equal on paper.
A model worth emulating
The SEC model is certainly something for the Big Ten to consider emulating in the future — especially since the B1G is practically there already.
Ideally, pools would be made from a rolling 8-year total that gets updated every 2 years. So when the 2026 and ’27 schedules are unveiled — probably in summer 2025 — the B1G would use every team’s conference records from 2016-24. The smaller sample size is also an improvement on the SEC model.
The goal should be to have every team play 9 games against Pool A and B every 2 years — so long as it fits within the greater goal of every Big Ten team playing every league opponent in that same window.
Circumstances might not make it possible every cycle. But if it can be done, achieving that balance should be a league priority.
Alex Hickey is an award-winning writer who has watched Big Ten sports since it was a numerically accurate description of league membership. Alex has covered college football and basketball since 2008, with stops on the McNeese State, LSU and West Virginia beats before being hired as Saturday Tradition's Big Ten columnist in 2021. He is an Illinois native and 2004 Indiana University graduate.