ESPN’s Greg McElroy identified the easiest schedules in the Big Ten. He focused on Illinois and Nebraska, based on their slates, to be teams that could make serious noise ahead of the College Football Playoff. “Illinois has a road trip in the non conference at Duke on September 6. Tough game for sure,” McElroy said […]
ESPN’s Greg McElroy identified the easiest schedules in the Big Ten. He focused on Illinois and Nebraska, based on their slates, to be teams that could make serious noise ahead of the College Football Playoff.
“Illinois has a road trip in the non conference at Duke on September 6. Tough game for sure,” McElroy said on Always College Football. “They’re at Indiana, likely going to be a dog in that game as well. USC comes to them. USC I’m bullish on, other people not so much, but they’ll probably be a slight favorite there at home against the Trojans. They go to Purdue, (they’re) in real rebuild mode. We’ll see what the Boilermakers can do this season. Ohio State is at home. There’ll be a double digit dog in that game, but you get them in your own backyard, maybe pull off a stunner there.
“On October 11, you’ll go to Washington, which is a toss up, Rutgers at home, Maryland at home, Northwestern at home. And then on the 22nd you go to Wisconsin. And again, you need to be very, very careful with because that might be a desperation mode for the Badgers, and they will have that home crowd there in Madison behind them.”
Big Ten’s easiest schedules go to Illinois, Nebraska, per Greg McElroy
Illinois might have an easy slate, but so does Nebraska. Could these be two Big Ten teams that upset the apple cart and make it to the College Football Playoff? Or even the Big Ten championship game?
“We’ll go next to Nebraska, another team in the Big Ten that I think has a fairly manageable schedule,” McElroy said. “Will kick off the season against Cincinnati, that’s on Thursday, that’ll be in a neutral site, but probably have more Nebraska fans there in Kansas City. They’ll play Michigan at home. Probably going to be an underdog there as well. Michigan State comes to them as well. They go to Maryland. They go to Minnesota. That game’s on a Friday, will be a slight favorite. Northwestern at home, USC at home. That’ll be an interesting game there between the Cornhuskers and the USC Trojans on November 1.
“They’re at UCLA. They’re at Penn Sate, that’s coming off a bye. That’s the only game right now, and looking at their schedule, where they’re probably going to be a pretty heavy underdog before finishing up with the home game on Friday against the Iowa Hawkeyes. So you look at Nebraska’s schedule, it is not unthinkable to see them sitting there 9-3, maybe 10-2, if they can knock somebody off.”
Category: General Sports
