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Joel Klatt wants balanced schedules, consistent number of conference games in CFB

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

Schedule balance among major conferences in college football was a topic at B1G Media Days in Chicago, and it’s spilled over into Big Ten Network’s Take Ten Podcast.

Recently, Joel Klatt joined the Take Ten Podcast to talk about a variety of topics, but one thing that stood out from his conversation was his thought on scheduling imbalance in college football. Specifically, the FOX Sports analyst hates that some leagues play nine conference games while others play eight.

Ideally, he wants a universal number across the sport. He believes it would level the playing field, particularly among the Power Five conferences.

“How about I just argue, we all need to play the same schedule makeup,” Klatt said during the podcast. “That’s all I’m going to argue. I don’t care if it’s five conference games or six conference games or seven conference games or eight. I don’t care if it’s nine or 10. I just think that everybody should play the same schedule makeup.”

At B1G Media Days, the nine conference games — compared to the SEC and ACC playing eight — was a big topic of debate, especially with Penn State’s James Franklin and Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald. They’d also like to see similar data points across college football, whatever the number of league games may be.

Klatt pointed to a specific example where schedule imbalance could be a huge disadvantage for one team in the B1G: Michigan.

The Wolverines will play seven-straight weeks against teams that are Power Five opponents or Notre Dame. Nobody else in college football will have that same type of challenge this year.

“Michigan, this year, plays seven consecutive weeks against Power Five opponents or Notre Dame,” Klatt said. “That’s more than any of those other top teams by two. The only other teams that come close are Georgia, Oklahoma and Michigan State who have five.”

It is a daunting task, and could hurt Michigan’s chances at a College Football Playoff bid.

Klatt has been one of the biggest supporters of schedule uniformity across college football. His voice has gotten louder over the last few years, but nothing has really changed.

Unfortunately for the B1G, it’s going to be at least a little while before anything changes. Until then, we’ll likely continue to hear this argument every offseason.

Below is the full clip from Klatt:

Dustin Schutte

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