Report: 10 Big Ten matchups leak ahead of full 2024 football schedule release

The Big Ten is slated to release its full conference football scheduling model for 2024 and beyond on Thursday afternoon. But a few big-time matchups for the 2024 season have leaked out ahead of time.

Action Network’s Brett McMurphy has reported a number of matchups that are expected to be in the Big Ten’s conference schedule come 2024. The official schedule model release will be on Big Ten Network at 4:30 p.m. EST.

2024 is the first season that USC and UCLA will be in the league, and both schools have pulled some name-brand opponents.

Big Ten conference games on the 2024 schedule, according to McMurphy, include:

• Michigan at USC
• Ohio State at USC
• Wisconsin at Michigan
• Iowa at USC
• UCLA at Michigan
• Wisconsin at USC
• Nebraska at UCLA
• Iowa at Ohio State
• USC at Penn State
• UCLA at Iowa

The big news are the trips to Los Angeles for regular-season games, and vice versa. And a difficult welcome to the league for UCLA and USC. Both squads face Ohio State and Michigan and the Trojans also have a trip to Happy Valley to play Penn State, to boot.

All told, Michigan, Ohio State, Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska will make a trip to play either USC or UCLA in 2024. None of the teams already in the Big Ten appear to travel to Los Angeles twice in the 2024 season, based on the games McMurphy reported.

The Big Ten will announce its new schedule with a special edition of B1G Live Thursday afternoon. Commissioner Tony Petitti, new chief operating officer Kerry Kenny and Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith will join B1G Live hosts Mike Hall and Howard Griffith for the announcement, which is set for 4:30 p.m. ET on the Big Ten Network.

The Big Ten might unveil a ‘Flex Protect’ scheduling model

According to a report from The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach, the league could decide on a unique model.

Auerbach reported the Big Ten could opt for a “Flex Protect” format, which means teams will have a different number of annual opponents. In that model, teams would play between one and three permanent opponents each year to help protect some traditional rivalries. It would also mean the end of the East-West divisional format, which was reportedly likely to end after the 2023 season, anyway.

The Big Ten will still play nine conference games, but the “Flex Protect” model would create more flexibility for the annual schedule and keep “an eye toward competitive balance, home-and-away rotations and the specific challenges around West Coast travel for teams playing USC or UCLA,” Auerbach wrote.