The Big Ten Conference will establish two separate football divisions starting with the 2011 season, incorporating its newest member, the University of Nebraska, into regular play schedules.
The Nebraska Cornhuskers will play the Penn State Nittany Lions annually, according to those new schedules.
Each of the new divisions will count six universities, according to an announcement Wednesday evening from the conference. Penn State will be in a division with Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Purdue and Wisconsin.
The other division will comprise Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska and Northwestern.
Names for the divisions have yet to be announced. Penn State is scheduled to host Nebraska on Nov. 12, 2011 — one of six cross-division rivalries guaranteed to make the conference schedule every year, according to the Big Ten.
Here are the other cross-division match-ups to be slated each season: Illinois-Northwestern, Indiana-Michigan State, Ohio State-Michigan, Purdue-Iowa and Wisconsin-Minnesota.
‘We focused on competitive equality, traditional rivalries and geography’ in establishing the new divisions and schedules, Big Ten Commissioner James Delany said in a prepared statement. ‘We considered multiple models and countless permutations in an effort to achieve the most competitively balanced divisions while at the same time respecting our traditions, preserving existing rivalries and creating opportunities for the establishment of new rivalries.
‘We have listened to the feedback from our institutions, alumni and fans,’ Delany went on. ‘And while we understand that no final alignments could possibly satisfy all of our constituents, we believe that we have achieved a very exciting result.’
Under the new system, each year every Big Ten school will play the other five schools within its division and three from the other division — including its cross-division annual rival. The top school in each division will play in the inaugural Big Ten Football Championship Game, scheduled for Dec. 3, 2011, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the conference reported.
That game, the conference noted, will decide the Big Ten champion and the conference’s participant in the Rose Bowl Game or the Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game.
Penn State’s 2011 and 2012 Big Ten football schedules are posted below. For more complete schedules from the conference, head to the Big Ten announcement page.
Nittany Lions’ Big Ten football schedule for 2011
- Oct. 1: at Indiana
- Oct. 8: Iowa
- Oct. 15: Purdue
- Oct. 22: at Northwestern
- Oct. 29: Illinois
- Nov. 12: Nebraska
- Nov. 19: at Ohio State
- Nov. 26: at Wisconsin
Nittany Lions’ Big Ten football schedule for 2012
- Sept. 29: at Illinois
- Oct. 6: Northwestern
- Oct. 20: at Iowa
- Oct. 27: Ohio State
- Nov. 3: at Purdue
- Nov. 10: at Nebraska
- Nov. 17: Indiana
- Nov. 24: Wisconsin
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