Big Ten releases new schedule with Ohio State-Michigan in traditional spot

The latter game matches up the favorites in the East division and figures to put one in the driver’s seat on the road to the Big Ten Championship Game on Dec. 19.

After the showdown in Happy Valley, Ohio State will return home to play Rutgers in Week 3 then travel to Maryland in Week 4.

The Buckeyes will host Indiana in Week 5 and go to Illinois in Week 6.

They will finish the regular season with back-to-back games against schools from the Great Lakes State: A trip to Michigan State then the traditional season-ender against Michigan.

In Week 9, the winners of each division will face off for the conference championship, but everyone else will be in action as well with No. 2 in the East playing No. 2 in the West, No. 3 playing No. 3 and so on.

The Big Ten previously redid its schedule once, announcing a 10-game slate in August that was soon scrapped when the conference’s chancellors and presidents voted to “postpone” fall sports to winter or spring.

They reversed that decision this week, citing advances in testing and better knowledge of the potential for cardiac issues caused by COVID-19.

The 10-game schedule was to start in early September and have multiple open weeks to allow for rescheduling games postponed by COVID-19 outbreaks and contact tracing resulting in too few players being available in a given week.

That slate had Ohio State and Michigan playing in October, but instead the Buckeyes and Wolverines will close the conference season against each other, as they have done every year since 1935.

Ohio State has won eight in a row in the series and 17 of the last 19.

The Wolverines still lead the all-time series 58-52-6 (counting a victory Ohio State vacated as a result of NCAA violations in 2010), but that is the closest the series has been since 1905.

According to a release from Ohio State, there is potential for some games to be moved to Friday or other “special dates” at a later time.