Michigan State football rivalry with Michigan protected in new Big Ten conference schedule
Fear not Michigan State football fans, the rivalry matchup with the Michigan Wolverines is still protected in the expanded Big Ten.
The Big Ten announced its new schedule structure for the 2024-28 football seasons on Thursday, accounting for the addition of four West Coast schools — Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington — to the conference and protecting the Spartans' in-state rivalry as an annual matchup once again.
The new scheduling model, called the Flex Protect XVIII, will feature both protected rivalries and a rotation of opponents to generate the Big Ten football schedule. It is a way for all schools in the soon-to-be 18-team conference to play each other in relatively short time windows while protecting historic rivalries, such as Michigan-Michigan State and Michigan-Ohio State.
The Big Ten said the primary goals of the new model are to balance travel across the country, maintain flexibility on scheduling as college football evolves, and balance historic rivalries and recent competitive trends, including home-and-away balance of traditionally competitive schools.
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Michigan State is guaranteed to play Michigan each season because it was one of the 12 rivalries recognized by the conference with an annual matchup. The conference schedule will consist of nine games a season rotating so that each school plays every other school at least twice, but no more than three times, in a five-year span.
MSU's 2024 conference schedule has five home games and four road games, including a trip to Oregon. It will be the first matchup for the Spartans with one of the new conference members. Michigan State will play UCLA at home and USC on the road in 2025 and Washington — which MSU has played as a nonconference foe each of the past two seasons — for the first time as leaguemates in 2026 at home.
The Spartans will also play Illinois, Maryland and U-M on the road next season. MSU will host Indiana, Iowa, Ohio State, Purdue, and Rutgers at Spartan Stadium.
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The dates for all the conference games will be released at a later date.
As for the nonconference, MSU plays Florida Atlantic and Louisiana at home and visits Boston College next season.
To view the schedules for every team in the Big Ten for the next five seasons, click here.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State rivalry with Michigan protected in new Big Ten schedule
