Up next is our survey of the big-boy schools of the Midwest, the Big Ten.

1. Northwestern (1.25 legit, 1 FCS): California, Northern Illinois, Western Illinois, @Notre Dame. It’s pretty bad when a traditional conference patsy tops the list, but such is the case in the Big Ten this season. It’d be even worse except for the fact Cal has been awful the last couple of seasons, decreasing their appeal in terms of the “legit” rating.
2. Michigan (1, 0.5): Appalachian State, @Notre Dame, Miami, Utah. Michigan tries to exact revenge for their embarrassment seven years ago. For the record, the Miami here is the one in the MAC.
3. Michigan State (1, 1): Jacksonville State, @Oregon, Eastern Michigan, Wyoming. One of the premier inter-sectional games of the season has to be Michigan State-Oregon. Looking over this schedule, it’ll be the Big Ten’s only shot at another conference’s power team, and Sparty can improve the entire conference’s chances in the post-season with a win.
4. Wisconsin (1, 1): N-Louisiana State, Western Illinois, Bowling Green, South Florida. Okay, I guess there’s one other shot, with this neutral site game against LSU. I can’t say I like the Big Ten’s odds in either contest, but I like Sparty’s better.
5. Nebraska (1, 1): Florida Atlantic, McNeese State, @Fresno State, Miami. In this case, it is that Miami, which I guess also falls under the above category. But hey, too late to change course now. Also, while Nebraska-Miami might actually be a good game, it’s hard to see it affecting the national title race.
6. Purdue (1, 1): Western Michigan, Central Michigan, N-Notre Dame, Southern Illinois. The battle for Indiana’s soul will happen, somewhat appropriately, in Indianapolis. Provided Indiana’s “soul” doesn’t also include, you know, Indiana.
7. Ohio State (0.75, 0): N-Navy, Virginia Tech, Kent State, Cincinnati. VPI might give the Buckeyes a run for their money, but even with Braxton Miller they should still be able to outscore the Hokies. Otherwise, this schedule presents no obstacles.
8. Maryland (0.75, 1): James Madison, @South Florida, West Virginia, @Syracuse. Sometimes, when undergoing drastic changes in your life, you need some stability. Something to keep you grounded. For the Terps, their anchors are apparently West Virginia (a team they’ve met 50 times overall, and in each season going back to 2010) and Syracuse (a team they’ve played 35 times and shared a conference with, albeit briefly).
9. Iowa (0.5, 1): Northern Iowa, Ball State, Iowa State, @Pittsburgh. So, wait, Iowa can figure out a way to play Pitt but West Virginia can’t? Here are asimsports, we’re still all in favor of traditional rivalry games, but such is the reality of realignment.
10. Indiana (0.5, 1): Indiana State, @Bowling Green, @Missouri, North Texas. I’d say something about this schedule, but there’s not really much to say other than this is an extremely rare trip by a Big Ten team to a MAC stadium. I’m not kidding, either. Since 1920, the current members of the Big Ten have played the current member of the MAC 292 times, and only in 19 of those contents has the Big Ten team been the visitor. But Indiana is just cool like that, they also did the same favor for UMass in 2012.
11. Illinois (0.5, 1): Youngstown State, Western Kentucky, @Washington, Texas State. Usually, what the deal is with this is I look over the opponents and try to come up with something interesting. If I can’t think of anything, I then go with something like “the last time [team] played [conference] on the road was in [year]”. Noting the away game in Seattle, I figured I could use that here. Nope. Illinois played Arizona State on the road in 2012.
12. Minnesota (0.5, 1): Eastern Illinois, Middle Tennessee State, @Texas Christian, San Jose State. This totally slipped past me, I guess because I don’t really care that much, but the Gophers’ old home, the Hubert H. Humphery Metrodome, was demolished earlier this year. Now, Minnesota moved out a couple years ago, but the building was torn down to make way for a new Vikings Stadium. So in the interim, Minnesota will share a stadium with the local NFL club again. As part of the deal, they also got some upgrades to their already mostly new on-campus stadium, most notably a heating system for the field to allow it to be playable late in the NFL season.
13. Rutgers (0.25, 1): N-Washington State, Howard, Navy, Tulane. Not much to see here, unfortunately.
14. Pennsylvania State (0, 0): N-Central Florida, Akron, Massachusetts, Temple. Well, on the flip side, all these teams are technically in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

And now the Big Ten, ranked 1 through 12.

1. Purdue (1.5 legit, 1 FCS): @Cincinnati, Indiana State, Notre Dame, Northern Illinois. Yeah, this isn’t a strong start here. Cincy only barely counts and normally I would discount a game against an in-state rival, but, well, this is what we have to work with in the Big Ten this year.
2. Michigan (1, 0): Central Michigan, Notre Dame, Akron, @Connecticut. Mostly because the other two teams with 1s or better also play Notre Dame every year. I guess there is that game at UConn here, but eh.
3. Michigan State (1, 1): Western Michigan, South Florida, Youngstown State, @Notre Dame. Reminder: it only gets worse!
4. Illinois (0.75, 1): Southern Illinois, Cincinnati, N-Washington, Miami. If you’re not up on my school name gimmicks, just now that I never specify which Miami it is unless it’s not obvious from context. Also we probably should’ve given UDub a little more credit here, so I’m going to blame my brother for that.
5. Northwestern (0.75, 1): @California, Syracuse, Western Michigan, Maine. Honestly, NU-Cal is probably the most intriguing match-up so far, but I gave Illinois credit for playing two teams with a higher average ranking.
6. Wisconsin (0.5, 1): Massachusetts, Tennessee Tech, @Arizona State, Brigham Young. If I were Wisconsin, I’d play in the Southwest every year in, say, November or thereabouts. But that’s not how they roll in the Big Ten.
7. Nebraska (0.5, 1): Wyoming, Southern Mississippi, California-Los Angeles, South Dakota State. Nebraska-UCLA is at least interesting from a the inter-sectional matchup perspective, so let’s hope that this is rated higher on the return trip.
8. Ohio State (0.5, 1): Buffalo, San Diego State, @California, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical. This isn’t a great schedule for a team though to be a national championship contender. Cal is expected to be better this year, but considering they were 3-9 last year that’s not saying much. The Buckeyes will need to dominate this schedule.
9. Indiana (0.25, 1): Indiana State, Navy, Bowling Green, Missouri. Not much here, but, well, they are Indiana.
10. Pennsylvania State (0, 0): N-Syracuse, Eastern Michigan, Central Florida, Kent State. While not as bad as everyone thought last year, it’s hard to see how Penn State will be any better this year. This schedule should be good for three wins, though.
11. Minnesota (0, 1): Nevada-Las Vegas, @New Mexico State, Western Illinois, San Jose State. San Jose State is a trendy underdog pick this year, which may be bad news for the Golden Gophers.
12. Iowa (0, 1): Northern Illinois, Missouri State, @Iowa State, Western Michigan. As stated previously, we generally don’t look favorably when the only major conference team you play is a traditional in-state rival, so having your rival be Iowa State doesn’t really help your case.

Time for everyone’s favorite mathematically challenged conference, the Big Ten.

1. Michigan (1.75 legit, 0.5 FCS): N-Alabama, Air Force, Massachusetts, @Notre Dame. One of the most intriguing inter-section games of the year has to be Michigan-Alabama. Also, by the time this is over I will probably actually finally know how to spell “Massachusetts”.
2. Michigan State (1.25, 0): Boise State, @Central Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan. The game against Boise is interesting for sure. The road game against CMU is interesting as well, but it’s a shame they’re terrible again.
3. Purdue (0.75, 1): Eastern Kentucky, @Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan, Marshall. Too bad they couldn’t play East Carolina instead of Marshall, because they had a pretty good theme going there.
4. Ohio State (0.5, 0): Miami, Central Florida, California, Alabama-Birmingham. This Miami is the one in Ohio. Other than that, the only thing going here is the game against Cal, but nonetheless Urban Meyer’s new crew will only have to leave Columbus 4 times this year.
5. Pennsylvania State (0.5, 0): Ohio, @Virginia, Navy, Temple. I think it’s pretty safe to say they have bigger issues up on State College than their out-of-conference scheduling right now.
6. Nebraska (0.5, 0): Southern Mississippi, @California-Los Angeles, Arkansas State, Idaho State. In a different era, the game at the Rose Bowl would be more interesting, but alas.
7. Northwestern (0.5, 1): @Syracuse, Vanderbilt, Boston College, South Dakota. In years past, this would’ve been good for a solid 0.75, but well, Boston College needs to stop being terrible.
8. Illinois (0.25, 1): Western Michigan, @Arizona State, Charleston Southern, Louisiana Tech. I liked the yearly series against Mizzou, but I guess that’s over and done with now.
9. Wisconsin (0.25, 1): Northern Iowa, @Oregon State, Utah State, Texas-El Paso. I’m having a hard time figuring out anything to write about this. Wisconsin should pretty much steamroll this bunch, right?
10. Minnesota (0.25, 1): @Nevada-Las Vegas, New Hampshire, Western Michigan, Syracuse. It’s hard to really accuse bad teams of having bad schedules, especially when it’s still entirely possible they’ll lose one of these games.
11. Iowa (0, 1): N-Northern Illinois, Iowa State, Northern Iowa, Central Michigan. Whereas it’s a lot easier to criticize the Iowas of the world for this sort of thing. There’s a cash-grab and road-trip-to-Decatur avoiding “neutral” site game with NIU and their two in-state rivals. Oh boy. Look for this one again in the epilogue.
12. Indiana (0, 1.5): Indiana State, @Massachusetts, Ball State, @Navy. Did you know: UMass will play their home games at Gillette Stadium as they transition to FBS? Well, this is their marquee home game for the season. I still like Indiana’s chances, though, despite them being Indiana.

That’s that. Next up, the saddest group of schedules in the land: the Big 12.

Okay, I am really busy right now, but I should be able to finish all of these before the season starts. Let’s do one right now, shall we?

1. Michigan (1.5 legit, 1 DI-AA): Connecticut, @Notre Dame, Massachusetts, Bowling Green. This schedule is pretty “meh” because they play Notre Dame pretty much every year. What gets them over the top is the game with UConn. UMass continues the new Michigan trend of scheduling patsies. I think RichRod can figure to get at least two, if not three, wins out of this part of the schedule. But then again, it’s difficult to image that Michigan has actually been as bad as they have been the past couple of years.
2. Ohio State (1, 0): Marshall, Miami (FL), Ohio, Eastern Michigan. As I said during the ACC preview, Ohio State-Miami is one of the most interesting inter-conference games on the schedule this year. The rest of this schedule is pretty bad, though. Marshall and Ohio had decent years last year, but Eastern Michigan was 0-12.
3. Pennsylvania State (1, 1): Youngstown State, @Alabama, Kent State, Temple. Also interesting is Penn State’s game at Alabama. I actually had to double-check to make sure this was happening, and yes it is. The rest of this schedule is fluff – there should be a law that Pitt and Penn State have to play each other every year.
4. Minnesota (1, 1): @Middle Tennessee State, South Dakota, Southern California, Northern Illinois. There’s something to be said for offsetting your return trip to MTSU by getting USC at home. The question for the Gophers is will they manage to win both of those? And if they only win one, will it be the one they should win?
5. Purdue (1, 1): @Notre Dame, Western Illinois, Ball State, Toledo. This is pretty much a boilerplate Big Ten schedule: Notre Dame, DI-AA team, and a double serving of some MACtion. Yawn.
6. Michigan State (1, 1): Western Michigan, Florida Atlantic, Notre Dame, Northern Colorado. Well, this one has some Sun Belt mixed in as well. For some reason the FAU game is in Detroit. I would guess that still counts as a home game for MSU.
7. Iowa (0.75, 1): Eastern Illinois, Iowa State, @Arizona, Ball State. Yes, you may have two BCS conference teams on your schedule Iowa, but they’re not very good. Nonetheless, Iowa has managed to lose 5 of their last 10 games with Iowa State, which makes you scratch your head a bit.
8. Illinois (0.5, 1): N-Missouri, Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois, @Fresno State. We continue to applaud the Illinois-Mizzou series, it’s just that neither team is very interesting or likely to be good this year. Illinois more so than Mizzou. If Zook hasn’t been fired already, the game at Fresno may be for his job.
9. Wisconsin (0.5, 1): @Nevada-Las Vegas, San Jose State, Arizona State, Austin Peay. I wonder how many comp’ed casino drinks it takes to get a Wisconsinite drunk? (My guess: at least 20.) Nonetheless, the Arizona State game is somewhat interesting and hopefully Wisconsin continues to take their scheduling in that direction.
10. Northwestern (0.25, 1): @Vanderbilt, Illinois State, @Rice, Central Michigan. Man, if NU played Duke this year they would’ve played the entirety of the “small DI-A private shcools” circuit. Other than that, there’s not much to say other than we’ll miss being able to make ourselves seem smarter than we actually are by making Kafka jokes.
11. Indiana (0, 1): Towson, @Western Kentucky, Akron, Arkansas State. Indiana may not be the worst team in the Big Ten this year, but this schedule sure is. But hey, the objective I suspect is to go 4-0, beat two of Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota, or Michigan and go to a bowl.

Anyway, I have to run, but hopefully next week I can go from one part of the heartland to another by taking on the Big XII. See you then!