Big Ten commish Tony Petitti hopes to have more games with CFP implications

Tony Petitti has a goal for Big Ten football as his first year as the conference's commissioner winds down: have more games with major College Football Playoff implications.

In an interview with ESPN, the Big Ten commissioner said he hopes the conference can have games later in the regular season that have an impact on the CFP race as the conference expands to 18 teams in 2024.

"We've got some work to do to figure out what that [future model] is, because obviously, it has real impact on your regular season," Petitti told ESPN. "You want to make sure that your teams have the ability to have a breakout season and qualify. And we also have to be realistic about what should get you access, in terms of number of wins. Look, we want meaningful games late in the season.

"We want fans to think that you know a game in the second week of November, even if you've already lost two or three games, still has a lot of value. That's the goal."

Petitti introduced a "Flex Protect Plus" scheduling model in 2023 for the Big Ten's 2024 and 2025 schedules before Oregon and Washington accepted offers to join the conference. Following the additions of those two Pac-12 schools, the Big Ten amended its future scheduling model, changing it to "Flex Protect XVIII" as it released every team's conference opponents for each season between 2024-28. 

With the "Flex Protect XVIII" scheduling model, every Big Ten school will face each other at least twice between 2024-28 as part of each team's yearly nine-game conference schedule. Additionally, there are 12 rivalry games that were protected to be played on an annual basis, such as the Michigan-Ohio State, Oregon-Washington and UCLA-USC games. 

When the conference announced its new five-year scheduling model in October, it stated that it sought to create a "balance of annual travel by distance, regions of the conference, and time zones" while also "maintaining control and flexibility as the college football postseason format evolves, with the goal to create access for programs into an expanded College Football Playoff."

The additions of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington along with the expansion of the CFP should naturally help create more Big Ten matchups with postseason implications in the foreseeable future. When accounting for the newcomers, five Big Ten teams were ranked in the top 10 in last season's final CFP poll, including Michigan and (future Big Ten team) Washington, who played in the national title game. 

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That's a notable increase from what the Big Ten had this past season. It had four teams ranked in the top 25 of the final CFP poll, but the conference's only matchups where there were playoff implications for both teams later in the season were the three games between the trio of Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State. 

That could change in 2024. There are four games scheduled in November between the aforementioned five teams who finished in the top 10 in the final CFP poll from last season, and that's not including the Michigan-Washington rematch in October. 

In addition to the new scheduling model, another thing that will likely bring heightened importance to Big Ten games later in the season is the reformatting of the conference's title game. The Big Ten will no longer have divisions in football starting in 2024 as the two teams with the best conference record will play for the conference's title moving forward. The East Division won all 10 conference title games since the reconfiguration of the conference's divisions in 2014. 

As the conference stated in October, the changes to the schedule are being made, in part, to help get as many Big Ten teams into the CFP as possible. While the format hasn't been finalized, it appears that the 12-team CFP will constitute the five highest-ranked conference champions and the seven highest-ranked non-conference winners. 

The Big Ten champ will almost certainly be among the five highest-ranked conference champions each year, but Petitti's hoping to create a conference schedule that creates a pathway for as many at-large bids as possible.

"When you're as deep as we are, we've got to do things to make sure that we have the access to the postseason that we think we deserve and has to be earned on the field," Petitti reportedly told ESPN. "I'm a big believer in that, and that helps your regular season. More teams playing more meaningful games later in the season, I think we still can do more there."