THIS IS ALL TEMPORARY

The ACC is crumbling, the Pac 12 may not exist anymore, and Oregon and Washington are blowing up Brett McMurphy's cell phone on a weekly basis to say they heard a rumor that UCLA said they saw USC talking to the AAU about Miami and FSU at 31 flavors, and they think it's pretty serious. As Sam Webb iterated and reiterated on the show this morning, they're just putting this together right now as a stopgap because they're not done expanding.

THE SCHEDULE

Mitch Sherman helpfully got us a screen shot. White games are on the road; gray at home.

[Discussion after THE JUMP]

Michigan, as we all suspected, will visit USC their first year in the conference, despite having Ohio State on the road and Texas visiting that year. The 2024 schedule doesn't have dates yet so we can just order by difficulty:

1. @Ohio State (11/30)
2. @USC
3. Texas (9/7)
4. Wisconsin
5. @Illinois
6. UCLA
7. Minnesota
8. Maryland
9. Michigan State
10. @Rutgers
11. Arkansas State (9/21)
12. Fresno State (8/31)

That is BRUTAL, with three potential contenders at the top, whatever Year 2 Wisconsin with Fickell looks like, going to a now-decent Illinois, tough outs UCLA and Minnesota, and then your 8th-hardest game is a rival that's been recruiting as well as Wisconsin and has you in their crosshairs.

Michigan's 2025 schedule gets a LOT easier but still goes about seven deep in losable games.

1. Ohio State (11/29)
2. @Oklahoma
3. Penn State
4. @Nebraska
5. @Iowa
6. Purdue
7. @Maryland
8. @Michigan State
9. @Indiana
10. Northwestern
11. Central Michigan (9/13)
12. New Mexico (8/30)

YMMV on the power rankings in three years; let's just get through this. Ohio State gets USC at home in 2025 but nothing like Michigan's 2024. I'm sure this was a point of contention, since what we were hearing out of these meetings was a lot of sidemouth B.S. about Michigan's easy 2022 and 2023 schedules. Maybe we shouldn't have canceled the UCLA series.

PLEASE DO A SHOWCASE

They haven't announced the plans for a postseason yet but rumor is they're going to just have the top two teams play, which is a recipe for disaster since there isn't a good way to determine the best two teams.

Showcase! Showcase! Showcase! Play the best three games that weren't played. You can even have it in NFL stadia. Replays are awful and just destroy or confirm information you already had. There is almost no configuration of a season that does not result in an obvious #1 game. Most of the time the #1 game is for the conference championship, but when it isn't that's because the #1 team already defeated all the other contenders and deserves to be the champion.

THE PROTECTED RIVALRIES

Nicole Auerbach broke down the ten protected rivalries.

This seems like the bare minimum. It's interesting that Maryland and Rutgers couldn't engineer a deal to keep Penn State on the schedule every year. Also note that seven of these protected games occur the final weekend, meaning everyone but Penn State and Michigan State are already seeing someone for Thanksgiving.

They could move Rutgers-Maryland to another week I guess, but there won't be much more variety than that. I wonder if MSU-PSU are going to get locked together or if both will get that week off for a bye, or use it to schedule an interesting independent. Right now PSU-MSU is on the schedule both years.

EVERYONE PLAYS MICHIGAN

I wonder if getting Michigan to visit was one of USC's conditions for joining the league in the first place. Michigan plays both in 2024, continuing a long tradition of always playing the teams they add right away. At least this one isn't locked in. When the B10 added Rutgers and Maryland they put them in the East with Michigan. When the B1G added Nebraska, they configured weird divisions that put Nebraska with Michigan. When the Big11Ten added Penn State and everyone was going to miss two opponents every year, they made sure Penn State didn't miss Michigan. When Michigan State replaced Chicago after World War II, it was on the condition they get a protected rivalry with Michigan. When they organized the conference in 1896, it was so Chicago could play Michigan.

The last team to join the conference and not play Michigan was Ohio State in 1913, but that was only because Michigan had left the conference, and the Western Conference (as it was known then) had banned teams from playing Michigan (except Minnesota ignored them). Before that Michigan-Ohio State had played every year since 1900. The loss of The Game was part of the impetus for Michigan returning to the conference in 1918.

OTHER ODDITIES

Empty Rose Bowl. UCLA's two seasons are extremely unbalanced. Their home schedule in 2024: Ohio State, USC, Nebraska, Minnesota, Northwestern. Their home schedule in 2025: Wisconsin, Purdue, Maryland, and Rutgers. Hope they have interesting non-con opponents.

Have Fun with That. Illinois visits OSU and USC and hosts Michigan, Iowa, and Purdue in 2024.

I may find more later but need to get this posted and get my kids.