Tony Petitti explains Big Ten's approach to scheduling

By next fall, the days of Big Ten football divisions will be no more. Rather than the three strongest historical powers all bullying each other for one spot in the conference title game, the league is set to open up its scheduling to do away with divisions and allow much more diversity in each team’s opponents from one year to the next.

For new Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, the goal with the new scheduling format is to have each program play every Big Ten opponent once every two years and twice — once home and once away — every four years. He explained the decision to schedule that way going forward to Joel Klatt on his show Big Noon Conversations.

“I will say, it’s doing something else that’s really important. When you want to be a league — I think, you know, being cohesive, seeing teams as frequently as you can see them,” Petitti told Klatt. “And the great thing about the format that was chosen and is going to be implemented is that, you know, in every two years you’ll see everybody if you come to a Big Ten campus. In four years, you’ll play home and away against everybody.”

Especially with new clubs joining the league, Petitti wants to balance out the conference schedules a bit more and make sure that USC and UCLA are getting a taste of every Big Ten club within their first few seasons.

“And I think that repetition, you know, is important when you integrate USC and UCLA to really connect everybody,” Petitti added. “Sort of seeing teams more frequently, I think it’s a better look, and the quality of those conference games is great.”

Of course, the new scheduling model also has a greater goal in mind: getting teams to the College Football Playoff. Clearly, that hasn’t been an issue thus far as the Big Ten has placed three different programs in the event since its inception, won it in its first year with Ohio State, and just had two teams make last year’s field. Really, the Big Ten has had as much (or probably more) playoff success as any non-SEC league in the country. Petitti hopes the new scheduling model only further grooms Big Ten teams for national title contention.

“So, it’s going to be challenging I think, but what comes with that is, you know, making the case down the road and things like the CFP that our schedule,” says the commissioner. “You know, there’s a gauntlet that our teams have to go through and that should be valuable when you’re evaluating the performance of any one Big Ten team to participate as an at large team in the CFP.”

Even with Ohio State and Michigan having made the playoff several times, and Michigan State who made it once, the Big Ten has still had several teams right on the edge a few years. Particularly, Penn State had a couple of very close calls, while Iowa and Wisconsin also finished with seasons ranking in the CFP top 10.

Perhaps with slightly stronger and more diversified schedules for those programs and the conference as a whole, the opportunity to put together a resume of CFP strength will become an easier feat.