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Barry Alvarez: Big Ten Teams To No Longer Schedule FCS Opponents In Non-Conference

The Wisconsin athletic director said that the members of the Big Ten would no longer schedule FCS opponents in football non-conferences schedules.

By Dan Vecellio

On his radio show tonight, Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez said that the members of the Big Ten came to a decision recently to put a halt on scheduling schools from the Football Championship Subdivision for their non-conference slates.

"The nonconference schedule in our league is ridiculous," Alvarez said on WIBA-AM. "It’s not very appealing…

"So we’ve made an agreement that our future games will all be Division I schools. It will not be FCS schools."

The policy would presumably take effect in 2014 when Maryland and Rutgers join the conference.

This decision does not have an effect on Penn State as their future non-conference schedules are currently filled with FBS schools. Massachusetts, whose first year in what used to be called Division I-A was this past year, is scheduled to visit State College in 2014.

In addition to Penn State, only Ohio State and Wisconsin also have only FBS schools scheduled in their non-conference slates in 2014 according to FBSschedules.com.

Other notes from the Alvarez show:

  • Alvarez once again made mention that geography would play a big part in reshaping the conference's divisions once Maryland and Rutgers join the conference.
  • Michigan State is lobbying to be put into the western division when realignment does come about.


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