A Closer Look At The Big Ten’s 2026 Schedule

The Big Ten released the football schedule for 2026 on Tuesday. Here’s a look at at teams that may have an easier or more difficult set of opponents based on their final 2025 SP+ rankings.

Early Look at Schedule Strengths

First, a caveat. There are multiple new coaches in the Big Ten for 2026. Plus, there has been a lot of movement in and out of the Transfer Portal (in addition to additions from high school recruiting and early entries to the NFL draft). This early look at the strength of schedules will not take into account expectations for each of the teams; it will only base the schedule strengths on how each team finished the 2025 season. There are going to be some teams that will improve and other teams that will be worse.

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For this look, I will be using the SP+ rankings because they include FCS teams (and other college teams) and not just FBS teams. Here are the final SP+ rankings and SP+ values for each Big Ten team.

Comparing how the SP+ rankings for each Big Ten team finished the 2025 season with where they finished the 2024 season, only 7 of the 18 teams changed their ranking by more than 12 places, so looking at the 2025 rankings should give us an idea of how most teams will look in 2026.

Northwestern (+50), Washington (+45), and Purdue (+31) improved the most. Minnesota (-43), Rutgers (-30), Wisconsin (-25), and UCLA (-23) dropped the most. Three Big Ten teams finished 2024 outside of the top-25 but finished in the top-25 for the 2025 season: Illinois (31 to 24), Michigan (26 to 25), and Washington (58 to 13). So, we can probably expect that 2 or 3 teams could move up significantly in the rankings for 2026 compared to where they finished 2025, and 2 or 3 may drop down significantly, but most will likely not change by a lot.

With that out of the way, here is what each team could be facing (if their opponents don’t change significantly, especially their non-conference opponents) in 2026.

Ohio State has a difficult schedule. If they make it to the CFP again this season, they will have earned it. They are facing 7 teams that finished the 2025 season in the top-25 (of SP+). They will face Michigan, Illinois, and Oregon at home and will be on the road to face Texas, Indiana, Iowa, and USC.

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Michigan, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, and USC all face 6 teams that finished in the top-25.

At the other extreme are Penn State and Illinois. Each of these teams only face 3 opponents that finished in the top-25. In addition, Penn State only faces 1 team that finished between 26 and 59, so they will be facing 8 teams that finished in the bottom half of the FBS (60 or below).

Win Projections

We can predict the 2026 win-loss records for each team based on the final SP+ values from 2025. For this analysis I added 3 points to the SP+ to the home team to account for the home field advantage. Here is what the win totals would look like if each team stays the same as their final SP+ rankings.

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A few notes before I get to the question of how realistic these numbers are.

First, from this you can see that Michigan has a difficult schedule-even though some of those difficult games are at home. I’m sure that Michigan fans are hoping for less of a drop with their new coach.

The second note is on Penn State. Despite the turmoil around their program in 2025, they finished high in the final SP+ rankings for 2025. That, plus a favorable schedule in 2026 means that they could rebound a lot in 2026. Note that the only loss for them in this analysis is to UW.

One other note is that USC doesn’t have a 12th opponent scheduled yet. For this analysis I assumed that it will be someone that they can beat.

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To determine how realistic these win projections are, I did the same analysis for the 2025 schedule (using the final 2024 SP+ values). Despite the problems around UCLA and Penn State, this methodology was correct for 87% of the games (117 of 135) in 2025. Of the games that it missed, only 4 were where there was a difference of more than 10 between the teams; in other words, there were only a few real upsets.

One team, Penn State, was off by 5 wins (down 5 wins). Two teams, UW and Northwestern, were off by 3 wins (both up 3 wins). The rest of the teams were off by only 2 wins or less. Five teams had exactly the number of wins predicted. In other words, most teams should expect to be within 2 or 3 wins of those projections.

Game Projections

Here is a look at each team and their opponents in more detail. For each team there will be games that they should win (SP+ advantage of more than 10 points), games that they should lose (other team with a SP+ advantage of more than 10 points), and games that should be toss-ups (10 points or less between the teams). Again, these are based on the final 2025 SP+ values (and a 3 point advantage for the home team). The total number of wins is shown in [].

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• Illinois [9]

  • Wins (5): UAB, Southern Illinois, Purdue, at Michigan State, at UCLA

  • Losses (1): at Ohio State

  • Toss-ups (6): Duke, Oregon, at Maryland, Nebraska, Iowa, at Northwestern

• Indiana [12]

  • Wins (11): North Texas, Howard, Western Kentucky, Northwestern, at Rutgers, at Nebraska, at Michigan, Minnesota, USC, at Washington, Purdue

• Iowa [10]

  • Wins (8): Northern Illinois, Iowa State, Northern Iowa, at Minnesota, Wisconsin, at Northwestern, Purdue, Nebraska

  • Toss-ups (4): at Michigan, Ohio State, at Washington, at Illinois

• Maryland [6]

  • Wins (3): Hampton, Virginia Tech, UCLA

  • Losses (3): at Ohio State, at USC, Penn State

  • Toss-ups (6): at UConn, at Nebraska, Rutgers, Illinois, at Purdue, Wisconsin

• Michigan [6]

  • Wins (4): Western Michigan, UTEP, Michigan State, UCLA

  • Losses (3): Indiana, at Oregon, at Ohio State

  • Toss-ups (5): Oklahoma, Iowa, at Minnesota, Penn State, at Rutgers

• Michigan State [2]

  • Wins (1): Eastern Michigan

  • Losses (5): at Notre Dame, at Illinois, at Michigan Washington, Oregon

  • Toss-ups (6): Toledo, Nebraska, at Wisconsin, Northwestern, at UCLA, at Rutgers

• Minnesota [6]

  • Wins (3): Eastern Illinois, Akron, UCLA

  • Losses (4): at Washington, Iowa, at Indiana, at Penn State

  • Toss-ups (5): Mississippi State, Michigan, at Purdue, Northwestern, at Wisconsin

• Nebraska [6]

  • Wins (3): Ohio, Bowling Green, North Dakota

  • Losses (4): Indiana, at Oregon, Ohio State, at Iowa

  • Toss-ups (5): at Michigan State, Maryland, Washington, at Illinois, at Rutgers

• Northwestern [6]

  • Wins (3): South Dakota State, Colorado, Ball State

  • Losses (4): at Indiana, at Oregon, Iowa, at Ohio State

  • Toss-ups (5): Penn State, at Michigan State, Rutgers, at Minnesota, Illinois

• Ohio State [11]

  • Wins (9): Ball State, at Texas, Kent State, Illinois, Maryland, at USC, Northwestern, at Nebraska, Michigan

  • Toss-ups (3): at Iowa, at Indiana, Oregon

• Oregon [11]

  • Wins (9): Boise State, at Oklahoma State, Portland State, UCLA, Nebraska, Northwestern, Michigan, at Michigan State, Washington

  • Toss-ups (3): at USC, at Illinois, at Ohio State

• Penn State [11]

  • Wins (8): Marshall, at Temple, Buffalo, Wisconsin, Purdue, Minnesota, Rutgers, at Maryland

  • Toss-ups (4): at Northwestern, USC, at Michigan, at Washington

• Purdue [2]

  • Losses (6): Notre Dame, at Illinois, Washington, at Penn State, at Iowa, at Indiana

  • Toss-ups (5): Wake Forest, at UCLA, Minnesota, Maryland, Wisconsin

• Rutgers [5]

  • Losses (3): USC, Indiana, at Penn State

  • Toss-ups (7): at Boston College, at Maryland, at Northwestern, Michigan, at Wisconsin, Nebraska, Michigan State

• UCLA [2]

  • Losses (7): San Diego State, at Maryland, at Oregon, at Minnesota, Illinois, at Michigan, USC

  • Toss-ups (5): at California, Purdue, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan State

• USC [8]

  • Wins (7): (Week 0 game), Fresno State, UL-Lafayette, at Rutgers, at Wisconsin, Maryland, at UCLA

  • Losses (2): Ohio State, at Indiana

  • Toss-ups (3): Oregon, Washington, at Penn State

• Washington [9]

  • Wins (6): WSU, Utah State, Eastern Washington, Minnesota, at Purdue, at Michigan State

  • Losses (2): Indiana, at Oregon

  • Toss-ups (4): at USC, Iowa, at Nebraska, Penn State

• Wisconsin [4]

  • Wins (2): Western Illinois, Eastern Michigan

  • Losses (4): Notre Dame, at Penn State, USC, at Iowa

  • Toss-ups (6): Michigan State, at UCLA, Rutgers, at Maryland, at Purdue, Minnesota

Based on their schedule at the fact that they have a new coaching staff (plus a lot of new players), UCLA looks like a team that could exceed these win projections. Bowl eligibility is even possible. Wisconsin is another team that could exceed their win projection since they have a lot of toss-up games that they are current projected to lose; a little improvement could mean a couple of extra wins. Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue are also teams that could win more since they are currently projected to win just 1 of their toss-up games (1 of 6 for Michigan State and 1 of 5 for both Michigan and Purdue).

Expecting 11 wins from Penn State this year may not be realistic, but based on their schedule, 8-10 wins does look realistic.

Final Thoughts

We should expect at least one team to either exceed expected wins or fail to meet those expectations. The 4 teams with new coaching staffs are likely candidates for that. It’s possible that additions to the team, either through high school recruiting or through the Transfer Portal, could boost a team significantly. USC, Oregon, and Ohio State all boosted their rosters from high school recruiting, but they were going to be among the top teams in the conference anyway. Penn State and Indiana have boosted from the Transfer Portal, but again, they were among the top teams (per SP+) in the conference already. There doesn’t seem to be any examples of teams that were in the bottom half of the conference gaining a lot through high school recruiting or transfers.

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There are probably at least 5 teams that, as of now, look to have a shot at the Big Ten title and the CFP, and 2 or 3 others that could as well-if things break for them. Some of that is due to how the schedule looks for each team this year; there is less margin for error for teams like Ohio State and USC, and teams like Illinois and Penn State have more of a chance if they can improve some.

For Washington to win 9 games, they will have to win 3 of the 4 toss-up games. Note that UW’s game against Indiana is currently close to a toss-up; with the 3 point home field advantage Indiana has just an 11 point advantage. Also, Oregon is only 10.5 points ahead of UW, even with the home field advantage for Oregon, so that is close to a toss-up as well. Even if you consider those games as toss-ups, UW would still need to win 4 of their 6 toss-ups to get to 10 wins. We should have a good idea if 9 or 10 wins is possible by the middle of October (after the Iowa game).