Indiana’s nonconference schedule keeps drawing heat, but Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti made it clear Thursday that the conversation is headed somewhere specific: more meaningful games in the opening month, and eventually a league rule to match.
Petitti said the Big Ten wants the season to open with better matchups and more appeal for fans.
“We need to play more good games,” Petitti said. “Like, I think we’ve been really clear about that. We think that the season could start way better than it does.”
For now, though, the Big Ten remains the only Power 4 conference that does not require its schools to play an out-of-conference game against another P4 opponent. That gap has left schools like Indiana open to criticism, especially after the Hoosiers swapped UMass for Jacksonville State on their 2027 schedule and reignited complaints about the program’s nonconference slate.
But Petitti said the league is looking at the bigger picture first: a 24-team College Football Playoff.
“If we get the 24-team playoff, you are going to see many more competitive games scheduled,” he said. “That’s my belief.
We’ll commit to that. We don’t need to say we’ll do it.
We’ll actually commit to doing it. We’re spending a lot of time trying to prepare for that.
“It takes a little bit of time to change schedules, as you know, as teams have commitments, but you’re going to see many more games. If 24 does happen, you’ll see the incentives change, and I really believe that you’ll see us start to schedule more (Power 4 games).
We really want to do it. It’s the right thing for fans.
It’s the right thing for our student-athletes and the competition. You know, I think it’s just got to be sequenced with the expansion of the playoff first.”
Indiana coach Curt Cignetti already knows where this is headed. He said as much at Big Ten Media Day in July. But with the Hoosiers coming off back-to-back trips to the College Football Playoff and a 16-0 national championship season, there’s been little reason for the program to rush into changing a model that has worked.
The debate keeps circling back anyway. And until the league tells Indiana otherwise, the Hoosiers will keep moving forward with the kind of early schedule that has become a lightning rod around college football.
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