Big Ten considers eliminating game vs. FCS opponents

The Big Ten has agreed to no longer schedule Football Championship Subdivision opponents during non-conference play, Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said Tuesday during an appearance on his radio show.

"The non-conference schedule in our league is ridiculous," Alvarez said, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It's not very appealing.

"So we've made an agreement that our future games will all be (Football Bowl Subdivision) schools. It will not be FCS schools."

The plan will take at least two more seasons to go into effect, however. Wisconsin is scheduled to play Tennessee Tech in 2013; several other Big Ten teams have set dates with FCS opponents in 2014, making 2015 or 2016 the earliest season this plan could go into effect, barring any changes to existing schedules.

"What we've got to do is upgrade (non-league schedules)," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told ESPN.com this week. "It doesn't make any sense to be playing people from different divisions with fewer scholarships."

The Big Ten's new stance runs contrary to the one held by the Southeastern Conference, which has multiple teams playing FCS opponents each week during non-conference play. On Nov. 17, for example, seven of the 11 SEC games featured an FCS team.

Dropping FCS opponents is one of several major topics discussed by the league at this week's Big Ten meetings. Delany, coaches, school presidents and administrators have also discussed scheduling night games in November – typically when the conference plays only afternoon games, ceding prime-time telecasts to other automatic qualifier leagues.

The Big Ten is also considering playing conference games earlier in the season rather than waiting until the conclusion of non-conference play; altering the current divisional lineup to reflect geography, not to mention renaming the current divisions (Legends and Leaders); remaking the current bowl lineup; and playing either nine or 10 conference games.

The Pac-12 and the Big 12 are the only automatic qualifier leagues to play more than eight conference games. For the Big Ten, eliminating FCS opponents is one way to allow for a nine- or 10-game conference schedule while still playing 12 games during the regular season.