Week 1 Football Release

BIG TEN FOOTBALL RELEASE - WEEK 1  |  STANDINGS  |  MEDIA GUIDE  |  SCHEDULE  |  BIG TEN MAILING LIST

• The 127th season of Big Ten football will commence this week as Minnesota welcomes Nebraska at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.

• Michigan State will make its debut on Friday, Sept. 1, with the Spartans playing host to Central Michigan at 7 p.m. ET on FS1. The remaining 11 schools will begin the 2023 campaign on Saturday and Sunday, highlighted by a pair of conference matchups. The complete opening weekend schedule appears to the right.

• The conference announced its 12th annual football preseason honors list, a group which featured nine returning All-Big Ten selections. A media panel selected the 10-member preseason list, with five representatives each from the East and West Divisions. The full list of honorees can be found on page 3.

• The 2023 campaign will feature 99 All-Big Ten honorees (first-, second-, third-team or honorable mention) selected by either the coaches or the media last season, with Ohio State leading the way with 16 all-conference returnees. The East Division welcomes back 56 all-conference players, while the West returns 43. Illinois is the only West team with double-digit all-conference returnees with 10, while each team has at least one All-Big Ten performer returning.

• The National College Football Awards Association announced the 2023 watch lists July 31-Aug. 14, with 83 different Big Ten players featured for expected on-field performance. Thirteen schools are represented with Michigan and Ohio State leading the way with 14 honorees each, followed by Penn State with 10 and Iowa with eight. The full list of Big Ten standouts featured on the 2023 NCFAA watch lists can be found on page 2.

• The Big Ten welcomes four new head coaches to the sidelines for the 2023 campaign in in Nebraska’s Matt Rhule, Northwestern’s David Braun, Purdue’s Ryan Walters and Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell.

• The Big Ten finished last season with three teams ranked in the AP Top 25, tying for the third-most of any conference. All three teams finished in the Top 10, marking the second straight year that the conference had three top 10 teams at the end of the season. The 2023 AP Preseason Poll also featured five Big Ten teams in No. 2 Michigan, No. 3 Ohio State, No. 7 Penn State, No. 19 Wisconsin, and No. 25 Iowa, while Illinois and Minnesota are both receiving votes.

• Michigan was crowned 2022 Big Ten Champion after its 44-22 win over Purdue in the Big Ten Championship Game presented by Discover on Dec. 3 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. It was the Wolverines’ conference-leading 44th Big Ten title and their second in as many years.

• Last season, the Big Ten posted the fifth-highest single-season attendance total in conference history with 6,333,196 fans attending home games. Excluding 2020, this marked the ninth consecutive season and 10th time in 11 seasons that more than six million fans have attended Big Ten home football games.

• Michigan and Purdue will look to repeat as division champions this season, as the Wolverines finished 9-0 to win the East Division and the Boilermakers finished atop the West Division standings at 6-3 in conference play.