The Big 10 announced its conference matchups for the 2024 and 2025 season. They have done away with divisions and the conference game will be a simple #1 v #2. The major innovation is how they are protecting key rivalries. They have have adopted what they are calling Flex Protect Plus model. While the name doesn't really tell you much on its face, it boils down to each conference member can have up to three protected annual conference games each year, but are not required to have three.
In practice this results in most of the members having one or two annual rivalries protected: OSU-Michigan, Michigan-MSU, USC-UCLA, Rutgers-Maryland, etc. Penn St ends up with no protected rivalries, while Iowa has three with Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Minnesota.
So looking at the future Big 12, I am curious how this model would apply. I would say the obvious ones are Sunflower, Farmaggedon, Revivalry, UH-Tech, WVU-Cinci. I would imagine that UCF and BYU wouldn't have any protected annual rivals, but what other matchups do you feel need to be protected? ISU-OSU, BYU-TCU, UCF-UH, others?
In practice this results in most of the members having one or two annual rivalries protected: OSU-Michigan, Michigan-MSU, USC-UCLA, Rutgers-Maryland, etc. Penn St ends up with no protected rivalries, while Iowa has three with Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Minnesota.
So looking at the future Big 12, I am curious how this model would apply. I would say the obvious ones are Sunflower, Farmaggedon, Revivalry, UH-Tech, WVU-Cinci. I would imagine that UCF and BYU wouldn't have any protected annual rivals, but what other matchups do you feel need to be protected? ISU-OSU, BYU-TCU, UCF-UH, others?
