Five takeaways: Purdue's 2024, 2025 schedules

Offseason schedule releases are big news. And the Big Ten made some headlines this month when it unveiled its new football scheduling format and league opponents (home and away) for 2024 and ’25, when USC and UCLA come aboard to make the league a 16-team conference.

Here are five of our biggest takeaways from the new schedules and how the changes will impact Purdue going forward.

1 – Purdue will maintain its trophy rivalries

The Big Ten protected the Boilermakers’ annual meetings with Indiana (Old Oaken Bucket) and Illinois (Cannon). Those are the two closest Big Ten schools to West Lafayette, with Bloomington roughly 110 miles from Purdue and Champaign about 90.

Purdue has kept its foot on IU’s neck of late, winning four of the last five meetings (COVID nixed the 2020 Bucket battle) after the Boilers had lost four in a row from 2013-16. Indiana’s only Bucket win since 2016 was in double OT in West Lafayette in 2019. The Boilermakers lead the all-time series with the Hoosiers, 76-42-6. Since 1997, Purdue is 17-8 vs. IU.

Purdue has a 47-45-2 edge all-time vs. the Fighting Illini, winning the last three battles and six of seven. Since 1994, Purdue is 17-6 vs. Illinois.

2 – Purdue will get a look at B1G newbies USC and UCLA

The Boilermakers will play host to USC in 2024, which will be the Trojans’ first trip to Ross-Ade Stadium since 1976 when John McKay and running back Ricky Bell led USC to a 31-13 triumph. The Boilermakers and Trojans last played in the 1998 Pigskin Classic in the Coliseum, a 27-17 USC win in which Drew Brees made his starting debut. Purdue is 1-3 all-time vs. USC. The lone victory came in the Rose Bowl following the 1966 season.

In 2025, Purdue plays UCLA in the Pasadena. It will be the Boilers’ first game in the Rose Bowl since it lost to Washington in the “grandaddy of them all” in the venue on January 1, 2001. The last time Purdue played UCLA in Los Angeles was 1979, a 31-21 Boilermaker defeat that took place in the Coliseum amid a smog alert. The schools last met in 1980, as the Bruins won 23-14 in Ross-Ade Stadium. Purdue is 0-3-2 all-time vs. the Bruins.

3 – The 2025 slate looks brutal

Swallow hard, Purdue Pete. There are games vs. Ohio State and at Michigan. There also is a trip to UCLA, in addition to home tilts vs. Iowa and Minnesota. Oh, and there also is a game at Notre Dame.

4 – Purdue will play Northwestern in 2024 (home) and in 2025 (away)

Each team will have three “two-play” opponents, meaning they will play home and away in 2024 and ’25. Purdue has its two protected rivals in Indiana and Illinois that it will play annually. The third two-play foe in 2024 and 2025 is Northwestern. Purdue has won three of the last four meetings vs. NU.

Purdue won’t play Iowa in 2024, marking the first time they haven’t met since 2010. The Boilermakers and Minnesota also won’t play in 2024, the first time they will have not clashed since 2013.

5 – Purdue is headed to California

When the Boilermakers trek to the Rose Bowl to take on UCLA in 2025, it will mark Purdue’s first junket to the Golden State since 2017. That season, Jeff Brohm’s first Boiler squad won a thrilling Foster Farms Bowl vs. Arizona, 38-35, in the home of the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara, Calif.

Every original Big Ten team will travel to USC or UCLA before 2025. The Bruins and Trojans will play every league opponent at least once by the 2025 season. As mentioned earlier, Purdue will play host to USC in 2024.

It’s all part of the “Flex Protect Plus” format, a model adopted to maintain historic rivalries while maximizing the league’s competitive balance. Schools will play every other conference opponent at least twice – once home and once away – in a four-year period. And there are 11 annual-protected games in what will continue to be a nine-game Big Ten schedule.

2024 Purdue schedule

Home games	Road games
Nebraska	Illinois
Northwestern	Indiana
Penn State	Maryland
USC	Michigan State
	Wisconsin

2025 Purdue schedule

Home games	Road games
Illinois	Michigan
Indiana	Northwestern
Iowa	Rutgers
Minnesota	UCLA
Ohio State