A lot of the Big Ten teams still have games to play in the 2025 season, but here is an early look at the schedules for the Big Ten teams in 2026. (I was expecting to have the dates for each of the games by now, but I guess that will be a separate look.)
Opponent Overview
With as many teams as there are in the Big Ten, it is difficult to have similar schedules for all of the teams. Depending on the year, some teams may end up playing more of the top teams in the conference while another team may play more of the bottom
teams in the conference. Plus there are non-conference schedules and the fact that half of the conference will play 5 conference games at home while the rest only play 4 conference games at home.
For this early look, we’ll look at the strength of each opponent for each team as indicated by their current SP+ ranking.
Before we do that, let’s see whether it makes sense to use the current SP+ ranking to look at next year’s opponents. To do that, let’s compare the final 2024 SP+ rankings for the Big Ten teams with the current SP+ rankings.
First notice that half of the teams have changed by less than 10 places.
Four teams dropped by 30 or more places while 3 improved by 30 or more places, including UW. And of those teams that improved, UW was the only one to improve enough to move in to the top-25. The other two teams did not improve enough to move into even the top-60.
Conversely, none of the Big Ten teams that were in the top-25 in 2024 dropped out of the top-25 in 2025. (Minnesota was close at #27 in 2024.)
And that seems to generally be the case across FBS; 16 of the top-25 teams at the end of 2024 are still in the top-25 in 2025, and 20 of the 25 are currently in the top-35. So, most teams are not going to drop from the top-25 into the bottom half of FBS. (Florida did drop from #20 to #63-which is likely why they hired a new coach.)
With 4 new coaches (as of now) in the Big Ten for next year, and the Transfer Portal still coming, it is possible that there could be some big changes in the SP+ rankings for some Big Ten teams. But, most will not likely make big changes (up or down).
With that in mind, here is a look at the strength of the opponents for the Big Ten teams in 2026. For this early look, I’ve divided opponents up into 3 categories: top-25, top-60 (which is about what would be expected of a bowl team), and below 100 (these are going to be FCS schools, lower-level G6 schools, and the bottom of the P4 schools).
Whoever takes over as the new Michigan head coach will have a difficult schedule. They will be playing 6 teams that are currently ranked in the top-25. USC will also be playing 6 of the current top-25 teams (that includes UW). In both cases, they will both be playing a current top-25 team in a non-conference game (Oklahoma for Michigan and Notre Dame for USC). And 4 of USC’s opponents next year are currently in the top-10 in SP+ (Notre Dame, Indiana, Ohio State, and Oregon)!
At the other extreme, 3 of the new Big Ten coaches will face 3 or fewer of the top-25 teams. Both Penn State and UCLA are only scheduled to play 2 each; that should make it a little easier on those new coaches. Illinois, Iowa, Michigan State, Oregon, and Rutgers are scheduled to play just 3 of the current top-25 teams.
Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, and Wisconsin all play 4 teams current ranked below #100. For each of those three teams, 2 of those 4 opponents are Big Ten teams (all three play both UCLA and Purdue). Nebraska plays just one team currently ranked below #100 (Bowling Green); their other non-conference opponents are Ohio and FCS North Dakota (which is ranked on SP+ at #92).
Wisconsin’s schedule looks to be much easier than this year when they played 5 top-25 teams including 4 that are currently in the CFP.
Washington’s Opponents
Looking at the 2025 season, and based on UW’s SP+ rank at the end of the 2024 season, UW should have won 7 games. Their improvement (from #58 to #18) meant that they won a couple of additional games (Illinois and Rutgers), and lost two that they should have won (Michigan and Wisconsin). Note that the factor in those 4 games was that the games they won were at home while the ones they lost were on the road.
In 2026, Washington will face (as of now) 3 teams that will have new coaches next season (WSU, Michigan State, and Penn State). That could make it difficult to know what to expect from those teams. They also have 5 conference road games, including 3 that are not in the Pacific Time Zone. We’ve seen UW (and other teams) struggle more when playing that far away.
UW faces 5 of the current top-25 teams in SP+. Two of those are road games (USC, and Oregon); the other three are at home (Indiana, Iowa, and Penn State).
For the sake of argument, let’s say UW stays at #18 in the final SP+ ranking and that none of their opponents change by more than 10 places next year when UW plays them. Here is what the opponents look like:
- Eastern Washington (Home): 226 (Win)
- Utah State (Home): 75 (Win)
- WSU (Home): 61 (Win)
- Indiana (Home): 2 (Loss)
- Iowa (Home): 15 (Toss-up)
- Minnesota (Home): 72 (Win)
- Penn State (Home): 20 (Toss-up)
- Michigan State (Away): 86 (Win)
- Nebraska (Away): 47 (Win)
- Oregon (Away): 2 (Loss)
- USC (Away): 17 (Toss-up)
- Purdue (Away): 103 (Win)
That makes 7 wins, 2 losses, and 3 that are currently toss-ups. If we assume that UW plays better at home, we can speculate that 2 of those toss-ups are wins and one is a loss. That puts UW at 9-3.
Before the 2025 season, many predictions were for UW to win 6 or 7 games. But UW improved a lot more than expected, so they ended up with 8 (before the bowl game). We should expect that predictions for the 2026 season to be 8 or 9. It is possible that UW could improve enough next year, or that one or more of their opponents could take a step back, (or both) so that UW ends up with 10 or more wins.
If so, UW could really be set up for an even better performance in 2027 since they are currently scheduled to only play 3 of the current top-25 teams (at Penn State, and home against USC and Oregon).
