This Is Supposed To Be Good?

With the college football season less than 100 days away, it is time to really start putting attention into the schedule of your favorite team and of the teams that may not rate as high when it comes to your rooting interests.

Last week we looked at the worst of the worst in the Big Ten, the non-conference games you don’t want to watch. Go to a wedding, get a final round of yardwork in, hell… go to the proctologist. All of these will be better uses of your time than watching any of those games.

But the numbers of good games (non-conference) in the Big Ten are surprisingly low. 18 teams times three non-conference slots and you think that we would have a difficult time narrowing this list down to just five games, right?

Wrong.

Not everyone can be expected to go out and sign a top-flight game for their non-conference schedule. Some teams have such a narrow margin to even become bowl-eligible, let alone competitive in the conference.

The difference in scheduling South Carolina versus East Carolina is massive when you are trying to get to six wins. A game against Kansas State would be more exciting for television and alumni but better take that lay-up against Kennesaw State instead. A dream match-up against Alabama is one that will be talked about forever but a sure-win against Arkansas State keeps the lights on and everyone employed (maybe).

This isn’t something unique to the Big Ten, a league that plays nine conference games. There are (S)till (E)xceptions (C)learly out there playing eight league games that have had scheduling practices that have created terms like “Chicken Sh*t Saturday” in week 12 of the season where a majority of teams duck out of playing against organized football teams to give chances to up-and-coming, down-and-out, never-will-be, programs with an exchange of money for not creating any possibilities of bad variables going into the final week of the season.

But with the Big Ten preaching about how ahead of the curve and enlightened it is with nine league games, so on and so forth, there certainly are teams that are not carrying their weight in terms of OOC tickets.

Yes, I can already hear it, Ohio State has had a year or two where it has not had a marquee opponent on the non-league portion of the schedule. But isn’t the fact that people point out the absence of that cornerstone opponent enough evidence that more years than not, Ohio State is playing at least one solid foe in a home-and-home capacity?

It is Texas this year with signed deals to play Alabama (2027 & 2028) as well as Georgia (2030 & 2031) all in the next six years?

If you play ONE good league game, there should be no talk of who else is played in the non-league part of a season. No, nobody wants to see two games against FCS schools and if I were college football’s boss/czar/tsar/dictator/king or whatever term, there would be no FBS/FCS crossover, outside of maybe a preseason game, either in spring or fall, and that’s it.

There are teams in the upper end of FBS (even the Big Ten, maybe even especially in the Big Ten) who have managed to play just about nobody in the OOC, ever.

Then everyone is not shocked when that team goes out and lays an egg against a bottom team either in league play or in an even more hilarious outcome, drops the game to the team of NPCs (Non-Playable Characters, a nod to video games, if you don’t know).

We will be sure to really light some of these teams up in an upcoming edition of The Big Me Kickoff, but this piece was supposed to focus more on the ‘good’ rather than the ‘bad’ but when we are having to give Purdue a high-five for playing Notre Dame, it should go to show just how bad things have become.

So, don’t blink or you will miss it. These are the five best non-league games on the Big Ten schedule.

Week 1 – Texas at Ohio State

We saw these two teams last play against each other in the 2025 National Semifinals in the Cotton Bowl and we all know how that one turned out.

Ohio State and Texas will both be very different teams from a personnel standpoint, each with new quarterbacks at the helm, among other things.

This will mark the 5^th time that these two teams have played, with each team winning two and losing two. Ohio State has only played this game once in Columbus, a 25-22 loss in 2005.

It remains to be seen what the preseason pollsters think about each team to see if this is a 1 versus 2 game, a 2 versus 3 game, or whatever match up of small numbers you may come up with.

Ohio State’s other two non-league games are nothing to write home about, home games against Ohio University and Grambling, but again, this is still a much better trio of games than most of the conference for the defending national champions.

Week 2 – Michigan at Oklahoma

Michigan may or may not be without its head coach Sherrone Moore as the school has the huevos to think it can pick and choose which games it is going to self-impose suspensions on its head coach.

Long before a career of ‘maybe’ ignoring one of the biggest and most brazen cheating scandals in collegiate sports, Moore was a football player at Oklahoma and ‘really, really would like to coach against his alma mater’.

With the NCAA moving at the speed of a glacier stuck in reverse, there shouldn’t be any hope for real resolution in any chapter of the scandal by the time these teams play week two. At least Michigan is now having its people suspended for full weeks (even if they seem to be haphazardly picked) versus his predecessor, Jim Harbaugh, getting suspended for about six of the 168 hours of a week, not allowing to coach his team but being around for the remainder of the weeks.

Huzzah! Progress!

Oh, I guess there is a game to be played, regardless.

This game will be the 2^nd meeting ever, Oklahoma won a 1976 meeting in the Orange Bowl, 14-6.

Is it possible that neither head coach involved in this game (using that description loosely) will be associated with their current programs in 2026?

Yes, I would be more surprised if both were back than if both were gone.

There is more history and name recognition involved than a belief that either of these teams are good.

But that’s where we live.

Week 3 – Wisconsin at Alabama

I would be so much more excited if this was a game between a Nick Saban-led Bama team going against a Barry Alvarez-led Wisconsin team.

No such luck.

The jury is still out on Kalen DeBoer at Bama going into year two. The jury may be growing tired with Luke Fickell at Alabama. Yes, this is only going into year three at Wisconsin, but is there any belief that the Badgers are any less offensively inept than in years past?

This will be the 4^th game ever between these two schools and the first-ever game to be played in the state of Alabama with two games in Madison (Wis.) and one played in Arlington (Texas).

The loser of this game is going to have a lot of explaining to do, Fickell may have more runway going into the state of Alabama with a roster that continues to reside in full turnover mode. DeBoer needs this game so much more because the national hopes run much hotter south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Week 4- Purdue at Notre Dame

I have received a lot of emails from people wondering why I hate Notre Dame as much as I do.

I am quick to point out that I don’t hate Notre Dame, I hate frauds, and as of late, Notre Dame has been a fraud.

‘But Kevin, Notre Dame played for the national championship last year and had a tremendous season’.

Sure, sure, Notre Dame did get to the championship game with a sweetheart draw, not only in the CFP but also over the regular season.

Go ahead and be an independent, being half in bed with the worst of the four P4 leagues (ACC). I am speaking about that from a recent performance standpoint. The ACC is much more storied than the current construct of the Big 12.

I don’t fault Notre Dame for chasing the money of a solo NBC deal. Money makes all things possible… well, it at least gives you a chance.

I do blame Notre Dame for not having the vision to realize that this gravy train is going to come to an abrupt end just like NBC’s family and faith favorite of “Highway to Heaven”.

And I blame college football for shifting even an inch to allow Notre Dame to have its feet in multiple lanes.

Oh, and Purdue plays football too, and is terrible. This is Ohio State’s open week, time for one final lawn mowing of the season.

Week 8 – USC at Notre Dame

I get another shot at Notre Dame here, this time is about the ‘he said, he said’ battle of the soon to end series between the Irish and the Trojans.

I don’t care enough to really read through everything, did USC only offer up a one-year extension? Did USC offer up a 20-year extension? Do I want to find out?

There is zero reason the Big Ten should do anything for Notre Dame. Okay, if the Notre Dame bus is broken down on the side of the road, maybe call AAA, but not until you are done with whatever you are currently working on.

Yes, these two teams have played 92 games, which is more than 10 times the amount of Big Ten league games that USC has played.

As a member of the conference, you now have to think about the league first, and a minimalized Notre Dame (and trust me, Notre Dame has minimalized itself since plenty for decades and decades) isn’t a bad thing for the conference.

Okay, before they send the crusades after me, let’s talk about the football aspect.

USC is the much more talented team, but I really feel that Notre Dame has much better coaching. Lincoln Riley is ‘not him’ unless he has a generational quarterback.

He doesn’t.

But outside of Jeremiyah Love for ND., I am not sure where the offense comes from. You have to outscore USC generally. Not saying that the Trojan Horse is a War Horse or a wooden shell with a bunch of smelly Mediterraneans inside of it.

This is still a game that I will watch, even if I am six spotted cows into the night covering the Ohio State versus Wisconsin game.

This one doesn’t have the sure hoopla that it used to and hopefully, for the sake of college football, we will be without this game for a minute to remind everyone where they stand in the giant cosmic pecking order.

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