Big Ten Announces 2015 & 2016 Conference Football Schedules

In a release from the Big Ten offices this morning we now know what the 2015 & 2016 conference schedules will look like for Bucky.  It’s always fun to look down the road and see what’s ahead of us, so with that let’s take a look at what’s in store for the Badgers in those years.

2015 SCHEDULE:

A quick look at the 2015 schedule shows Wisconsin has about as hard a pair of cross over games in 2015 & 2016 as they possibly could having to travel to Michigan and hosting Nebraska.  While it may prove to be that Nebraska might not be the super game depending on where this team goes in it’s first few years in the conference, it’s still a team with national cache at this point.  The four game stretch of @ Michigan, @ Illinois, vs. Nebraska, and @ Ohio State is very brutal and will be the key to the 2015 season in my book.

2016 SCHEDULE:

This schedule isn’t quite as worrisome despite getting Michigan and Ohio State in 2 out of 3 weeks.  I say it’s not as worrisome because the Badgers get both at home along with Illinois and the Gophers.  Call me crazy, but this schedule just doesn’t jump out to you in the same way that 2015 does as being very difficult inside the conference.

The one thing that will be really interesting to see is where Nebraska and Michigan are in terms of the conference and national picture when these games come around.  They replace Iowa and Northwestern who appear on the schedules of 2013 and 2014 so it will be interesting to see if we are replacing those schools with more difficult ones, about the same level of competition, or more difficult.  If it’s the last one, which I happen to think will be the case (at least for Michigan) these two years become a lot more difficult for the Badgers.