I'm not sure I can support this writer's premise. Eight games in a row to finish season is not good news!

Oregon Ducks On SI

Oregon Ducks Are Big Winners of Big Ten Schedule Release

The Oregon Ducks enter the 2026 season aiming to capture the first national championship in program history. Oregon reached the College Football Playoff in 2025

This is the 3rd time i have read this article and I don't see where the Ducks are BIG Winners in their 2026 schedule....

Where is the benefit of 8 straight games after the break? With 4k plus round trips to play, tOSU, Illinois and MSU?

The schedule difficulty from school to school is too unbalanced, PSU and tOSU travel west just once. PSU schedule is so soft that they should be favored in all their games except Michigan, USC and the Huskies. They can go 1-2 in those games and hit 10-2. NO IU, tOSU or Oregon on their schedule?

Michigan has PSU, IU, tOSU and Oregon on their schedule in 2026. And for a tune-up the Sooners come to Ann Arbor.....WTH?

DL and the team will not complain and they will take that schedule one game at a time. Only good part of the schedule is OBD's have until November to gell before playing tOSU.

Gonna be another nerve wracking season and I can't wait. 11-1 and a 3 way tie with IU and tOSU. Hope we lose the BIG tie breakers. Looking forward to a first round home game.

GO DUCKS!

I just posted on another thread the requirements the B10 uses to schedule games. I agree with you HappyToBeADuck ... it just doesn't make sense. Oregon is going to be beat up after 8 straight B10 games with additional travel to the east. The Penn State schedule is totally out of whack. They say the schedule is set "years in advance" ... what like 2 years since the 4 Pac12 teams joined?

I would think in today's world of high tech and even AI ... the B10 could come up with something more even(fair) in scheduling. PSU (Iowa State) with a new coach will be THE surprise contender for the B10 Championship with two possibly three games they could lose but should win ... USC, Michigan and Washington.

As an IU fan I would like a first round home game in the playoffs but after the weather in 2024 at Notre Dame and the weather in Bloomington this year when you played JMU ... I would not want a home game in that freezing cold weather in Bloomington.

Declaring “big winners” of the future schedule is a bit tricky. We certainly don’t have a very common 3 or 4 week stretch without a home game is nice.

Start sliding around where the bye could have taken place and I’m not sure it makes that big of a difference. We play 4 then 8. Is that significantly worse than 5 then 7? 6 and 6? 7 and 5?

What is the ideal bye week? Really hard to say.

I still cannot find an answer on why they moved the playoff championship game out a week further while remaining with the same 12 teams in the playoffs. How does that affect the number or the length of bye weeks in the playoffs?

Thanks for the post Mr. Smith, I think?

What a sunshine pumping, puff piece. The schedule stinks, stinks with a B1G S.

In today's world of constant roster turnover and lack of roster depth, asking any team to play 8 straight games against Power 4 competition without a week off is unfair to the players and the program.

OBD is the only B1G team playing 8 straight against P4 competition, including Northwestern and UCLA. This, for the second time in three seasons.

Asking a Western member to make two trips East in November, to Columbus to play Ohio State with a home game against Michigan to follow, then a game at Michigan State with a home game against rival UW to follow? And possibly another trip to the Eastern time zone to play the best or second best team in the conference?

Does anyone at B1G HQ give a whip about the health and safety of the athletes?

Looking at the opponents, before the dates of the games were revealed, I thought OBD would finish 11-1. Now?

Knock wood that OBD this season has the same luck on the injury front Indiana had last season. Knock wood that OBD doesn't have injuries to its WRs, RBs, and O-Line players like last season. If Dante isn't healthy come and through November?

However: Next Case! What are you going to do other than hope that Rob Mullens is making it known that 8 straight without a break will not fly in 2027, and 2028.

Changing the schedule is out of anyone and everyone's control so let's hope for the best and play ball!

When the 4 PAC 12 teams arrived, the B1G TEN did reveal which teams each team would play for the 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028 seasons.

Big Ten Conference

Big Ten Conference

The official athletics website for Big Ten Conference

There is no way to balance schedules with 18 teams. It isn't possible for all the other B1G TEN teams to play all 4 west coast teams. The B1G TEN is looking out for its own interests as well. Do we really want to see Oregon, tOSU, Michigan, Indiana, Penn St. all play each other every year?

When the schedule was revealed in 2023, did anybody think the 2025 schedule was going to be tough for the Ducks? It was essentially Penn St. Even with Indiana, last seasons schedule wasn't exactly murders row. After the opening week, the Ducks only had Penn St. and Indiana as ranked opponents on the schedule.

There are going to be seasons where the Ducks have an easier schedule than others. I do hope the B1G TEN do rotate the BYE weeks though. It does look like the B1G TEN did do a better job of having teams play each other after both have BYES.

Based on "years in advance" scheduling the B10 claims, I have a feeling 27 and 28 are already done. The B10 commissioner has nothing in his background that is football related. It's been sports media around MLB.

18 minutes ago, Tandaian said:

There is no way to balance schedules with 18 teams. It isn't possible for all the other B1G TEN teams to play all 4 west coast teams. The B1G TEN is looking out for its own interests as well. Do we really want to see Oregon, tOSU, Michigan, Indiana, Penn St. all play each other every year?

I'd also argue that there is no way to truly balance schedules because you don't know the strength of any of the given teams from year to year.

I'm sure many in the B1G schedule office thought that USC was going to cause more of a problem to B1G blue bloods than Oregon.

Also... no one saw Indiana's rise when the teams were sorted for who plays who years ago.

If you were putting the team slates together back in 2022 with the match-ups you would be absolutely shocked to find out that Oregon and Indiana both were power houses and both had a B1G Championship. And that Penn State imploded so badly that they fired Franklin, because Penn State has had a pretty manageable schedule from year to year, especially if you assume that Oregon and Indiana weren't supposed to be fighting for the top spot in the conference.