http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id...ague-games

Thanks Brian for posting this on the Frank the Tank blog. This gets into scheduling for the conference going forward. Basically it amounts to:

1. The conference wants more September conference games including opening weekend.
2. The early season opponents should be inter-divisional rather than intra-divisional.
3. They want to avoid giving teams a conference road trip the week before a non-conference road trip.
4. They also want to avoid having the same teams travel week 1 or early.
5. The ADs want schedules out to plan around as this will complicate scheduling more if they go this route (many non-conference games already planned).
6. They tried a few mock type of schedules last month and the ADs didn't really like them. They'll discuss again in October.

I would hate to see Big Ten conference games on opening weekend. The only saving grace could be huge match up that would get the country to watch, maybe on either Sunday or Labor Day. I remember Florida State and Miami used to play Labor Day and it was a great success from my point of view.

I'll echo that I hate to see conference games opening weekend. Personally I'd rather never see any until after all non-conference games are over (unless a particular school really wanted something later; maybe a Penn State-Pitt or Nebraska-Oklahoma kind of thing).

Since we're going this way though, my preferences are:
1. No more than 1 non-conference game for any team in the first three weeks of the year.
2. To the extent possible try to avoid match-ups between teams that expected to be competing heavily for a conference crown (even if they are opposite divisions), especially week 1 and 2.