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How will schedules be judged in the 12-team Playoff era?
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How will schedules be judged in the 12-team Playoff era?

Big Ten coaches have some questions about how their programs will be evaluated in the era of superconferences and more at-large bids.

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Matt Fortuna
Jul 24, 2024
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How will schedules be judged in the 12-team Playoff era?
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Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

INDIANAPOLIS — With the Vice President of the United State speaking just a few blocks away, Matt Rhule began politicking for his conference.

“If Haven Fields, our sport administrator, would have said, ‘I want to add USC and UCLA to the non-con,’ I would have thrown a fit. Like I’m not playing those guys,” the Nebraska coach said. “Well, here they are. When you look at the Big Ten, playing nine conference games, more importantly, playing five road conference games — not every conference plays five roads, some of the eight-team leagues, they play four road games, and sometimes ones have neutral sites so they play three where you have to go into someone else's stadium.

“In the Big Ten, we have to go into someone else's stadium in our league five times and duke it out. But I think we'll have a lot of access to the College Football Playoff. I think four teams from this league should get in every year because this is the best league. This is the NFL of college football in my mind. It stretches from coast to coast, different time zones, different weather.”

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Hey, it is an election season, after all. And it’s never too early to fight for your corner of the country.

Scheduling talk dominated Day 2 of Big Ten media days at Lucas Oil Stadium. Part of that was likely because it was the first day that any of the West Coast newcomers spoke, and part of that is probably because new College Football Playoff executive director Richard M. Clark spoke.

Kamala Harris just happened to be speaking at the Zeta Phi Beta convention at the nearby Indiana Convention Center as well, a fitting backdrop as the Big Ten — one of two conference power players entering Year 1 of the 12-team Playoff era — took center stage for the second day of its first public display as an 18-team league.

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