As the Big Ten Conference continues to plan a schedule and what its next step will be after announcing a return to football on Sept. 16, Barry Alvarez, Wisconsin athletic director and Big Ten Return to Competition Task Force football scheduling chair, laid out some idea of what the landscape will look like with members of the media.
Alvarez said the league teams will play eight regular season games in eight weeks and all teams will play a ninth game the week of the conference championship. The season is set to kickoff the weekend of Oct. 23 and the Big Ten title game will be Dec. 19.
Alvarez is the Big Ten’s return to competition task force football scheduling chair and told members of the media during a zoom call that there will be two cross over games that are left to be determined.
“When we play them will have to be determined," Alvarez said. "A number of discussions have been had with other coaches. I’ll get with the conference office as soon as I finish this."
A question about how does the league come together after what has been a rough couple of weeks was posed and Alvarez said, the bottom line is football is back.
“Decisions were made for the right reasons. Postponement was made for the right reasons. The chancellors and presidents made the right decision at the time, and they were open minded enough to sit back and look at the answers and solutions for questions they had. And, I agreed with them. The medical questions were out there, and without them being answered, there’s no way we could put our student-athletes back out there,” Alvarez said.
The Big Ten has not released a schedule, but it is expected to be released in the next few days.
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