The Big Ten will play a 10-game, conference-only football schedule that begins Labor Day weekend and includes ample flexibility, the league announced Wednesday morning.
Each team has two open weeks, and the schedule has four weeks built in to reschedule games, including a league-wide open week on Nov. 28. The model allows for opening games on the weekend of Sept. 3-5 to be moved to Sept. 12, Sept. 19 or Sept. 26 “through strategic sequencing.”
The regular season is set to wrap up Nov. 21, and the league championship game is set for Dec. 5 with the ability to move back as late as Dec. 19.
The football schedule starts as early as the weekend of Sept. 5 with final games slated for Nov. 21 to align with academic calendars. The Big Ten Football Championship Game remains scheduled for Dec. 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium, though it could be moved as late as Dec. 19. pic.twitter.com/vWp3OSifBc
— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) August 5, 2020
Michigan and Ohio State will face each other Oct. 24 — the first time since 1942 that the rivals will not play at the end of the regular season. The Indiana–Purdue game, pitting rivals from opposite divisions, will take place Nov. 21.
Big Ten teams can open preseason training camp Friday or earlier, depending on the date of their first game. Ohio State will open camp Thursday.
Commissioner Kevin Warren, in an interview with Big Ten Network, reiterated that there’s “no guarantee” that sports will be played this fall.
“It would be purely speculation for me to sit here today and say that this is the percent chance I think we’ll have a season,” Warren told BTN. “I look forward to hopefully one day being able to turn around and say that we did everything we could in the Big Ten to keep our student-athletes healthy and safe.”
The first and last week of the regular season will feature exclusively cross-division games. Week 10 (Nov. 7) will feature exclusively East Division games except for Illinois at Rutgers, and Week 11 (Nov. 14) will feature exclusively West Division games.
The Big Ten also announced medical protocols, including twice-weekly testing for COVID-19. The league will use a third-party laboratory to conduct centralized testing and “consistency in surveillance and pre-competition testing.”
The Big Ten on July 9 became the first FBS conference to reveal a general scheduling model, saying that all of its fall sports, including football, would operate with a league-only slate. But the league had held off on announcing specifics for football as it evaluated medical information about the coronavirus pandemic.
Maryland announced Wednesday that it was preparing to begin the season without spectators in attendance, but “it is our hope that we may be able to welcome some fans to home games as the season progresses and health conditions permit.”