The Big Ten Conference announced opponents for the 2024 and 2025 football seasons on Thursday. With UCLA and USC headed to the Big Ten, 2024 will be the first season with 16 teams and no divisional format.

According to a release, the 2024 season will also debut the Flex Protect Plus model, which features a combination of protected opponents and rotating opponents for universities. Each member institution will continue to play nine intraconference games per season, and teams will play every other conference opponent at least twice – once home and once away – in a four-year period.

The guaranteed annual protected matchups are Illinois-Northwestern, Illinois-Purdue, Indiana-Purdue, Iowa-Minnesota, Iowa-Nebraska, Iowa-Wisconsin, Maryland-Rutgers, Michigan-Michigan State, Michigan-Ohio State, Minnesota-Wisconsin, and UCLA-USC. The other two-play opponents for each member institution will change every two years.

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