Our long national nightmare is almost over.
We’re a couple of weeks from the start of the 2024 college football season. Week 0 is set for Aug. 24, with Florida State/Georgia Tech from Ireland serving as the main course.
There’s some major changes that will go into effect this season.
The four best programs from the now-defunct Pac 12 are all in the Big Ten.
The two most notable Big 12 squads fled for the SEC.
The Big 12 added some solid Pac 12 programs that actually make geographic sense.
The ACC added three teams that make no sense geographically.
The Pac 12 is now the Pac 2, but Oregon State and Washington State are essentially playing Mountain West schedules. The rivalry games are intact, though!
So the season may be a little strange. There’ll be a lot of questions like, “why is USC hosting Rutgers in late October?” Or, “Wait! Cal’s in what league, now?”
The one thing that I will give realignment is that it has loaded up each week. Every year there’s a handful of slates with much fewer intriguing matchups than others. That’s not gonna be the case for the foreseeable future.
Each week is going to give us more than enough matchups to get us hype. And with the College Football Playoff going from four to 12 teams, “good” losses won’t hurt as much as they did in the past.
Some top-tier teams are going to have more than one of those good Ls. Schedules across the board look tougher than they ever have. So which playoff and title contenders look to have the toughest road?
Over the next week, we’re going to look at the schedule for playoff contenders in each Power 4 conference, and the Group of 5 and Independents.
We start with NFL Lite.
Big Ten
Ohio State Buckeyes: vs. Iowa, at Oregon, at Penn State, vs. Michigan
The Buckeyes are (almost) everybody’s pick to win the Big Ten. The OSU/Oregon game is gonna be huge for the conference title race and playoff rankings. The season, and coach Ryan Day’s tenure, will likely come down to the Thanksgiving weekend showdown with the Wolverines.
USC Trojans: LSU (in Las Vegas), at Michigan, vs. Wisconsin, vs. Penn State, at Washington, vs. Notre Dame
All you need to know about the Trojans’ schedule is that the LSU, Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn State games all come in the first six weeks of the season.
Michigan: vs. Texas, vs. USC, at Washington, vs. Michigan State, vs. Oregon, at Ohio State
If the Wolverines can hold serve at home and go out west and beat Washington (something Big Ten teams have traditionally struggled to do), Michigan will put itself in position for a high seed in the playoff.
Oregon Ducks: at Oregon State (non-conference), vs. Ohio State, at Michigan, at Wisconsin
Oregon is my pick to win the Big Ten and the Ducks will for sure have to earn it.
Wisconsin Badgers: vs. Alabama, at USC, vs. Penn State, at Iowa, vs. Oregon, at Nebraska, vs. Minnesota
The Badgers and Tide meet in one of the five biggest non-conference games of the season. The Penn State and Iowa games are back-to-back, followed by a bye before Wisconsin ends the season with Oregon, Nebraska and rival Minnesota.
Penn State: at USC, vs. Wisconsin, vs. Ohio State
The James Frankin-led Nittany Lions usually top out at 9 or 10 wins. That looks like it’ll be the case again this year.
Up next: the SEC
