Gophers football conference opponents announced for ’24, ’25 seasons

The University of Minnesota now knows its conference opponents for the 2024 and 2025 football seasons.

Thursday, the Big Ten Conference revealed the matchups and said that 2024 will be the conference’s first season without any divisional format. That coincides with the conference’s additions of UCLA and USC.

In 2024, Minnesota will play Iowa, Northwestern, Ohio State and Rutgers at home and will travel to Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, UCLA and Wisconsin. The following season, the Gophers will host Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, USC and Wisconsin and play at Illinois, Iowa, Penn State and Purdue.

The Big Ten says the 2024 season will also be the start of the “Flex Protect Plus” model, which will have both rotating opponents and some protected opponents for each school. Under the format, each school will continue to play nine conference games per season and face every other conference opponent at least twice — once at home, once on the road — over a four-year period.

According to the conference, Big Ten schedules will include 11 protected matchups that will continue to be played each year. For Minnesota, that means the Gophers will continue to play both Wisconsin and Iowa every season.

The other protected Big Ten matchups are: Illinois-Northwestern, Illinois-Purdue, Indiana-Purdue, Iowa-Nebraska, Iowa-Wisconsin, Maryland-Rutgers, Michigan-Michigan State, Michigan-Ohio State and UCLA-USC.

The conference plans to announce game dates for the 2024 football season later this year.