2025 Week 1 Football Release

• The 129th season of Big Ten football will commence this week, as Minnesota, Nebraska, Rutgers and Wisconsin kickoff the season on Thursday. The Scarlet Knights welcome Ohio to Piscataway, N.J., at 6 p.m. ET, while the Gophers host Buffalo at 8 p.m. ET on FS1. The Huskers will face Cincinnati at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN and the Badgers welcome Miami (OH) to Camp Randall Stadium at 9 p.m. ET. 
• Illinois and Michigan State will make their debuts on Friday, as the Spartans play host to Western Michigan at 7 p.m. ET, and the Illini welcome Western Illinois at 7:30 p.m. ET on Peacock. Twelve teams will open the season with Saturday matchups, highlighted by No. 3 Ohio State hosting No. 1 Texas at noon ET on FOX. The full Week 1 schedule appears to the right. 
• The 2025 Discover Big Ten Championship Game will be held on Saturday, December 6, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and will be broadcast by FOX. The winner will represent the conference as the Automatic Qualifier (AQ) to the College Football Playoff.
• The National College Football Awards Association announced the 2025 watch lists July 28-Aug. 11. All 18 schools are represented with Oregon’s 21 honors leading the way, followed by Ohio State and Penn State’s 20, 18 for Indiana and Illinois with 14. The full list of Big Ten standouts featured on the 2025 NCFAA watch lists can be found on page 2.
• The conference announced its 14th annual football preseason honors list. A media panel selected the 16-member preseason list, with student-athletes representing seven programs. The full list of honorees can be found on page 2.
• The Big Ten will welcome a new coach to the sidelines for the 2025 campaign in Purdue’s Barry Odom. 
• The Big Ten claimed back-to-back national championship titles for the first time since 1942 last season as Ohio State defeated Notre Dame, 34-23, in the 2024 College Football Playoff at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. The Buckeyes brought home their sixth national championship to the Horseshoe in Columbus and first since the inaugural CFP National Championship in the 2014-15 season.
• In 2024-25, the four most viewed college football games of the season featured Big Ten teams, as did seven of the top 10, and 12 of the top 20. Three broadcast television partners – CBS, FOX and NBC – had at least one Big Ten matchup with more than 9.5 million viewers. Twenty-one Big Ten football games had an audience of more than five million viewers.  
• The Big Ten finished last season with five teams ranked in the AP Top 25, the second-most of any conference, including four teams ranked in the top 10. The 2025 AP Preseason Poll features six Big Ten teams in No. 2 Penn State, No. 3 Ohio State, No. 7 Oregon, No. 12 Illinois, No. 14 Michigan and No. 20 Indiana, while Iowa, Nebraska and USC received votes.
• Abbott and the Big Ten Conference are kicking off Season 2 of the We Give Blood drive. The competition starts August 27, with fans receiving a custom Homefield school-specific t-shirt when they donate on Aug. 27 (while supplies last). Every donation can help save up to three lives — and someone in the U.S. needs blood every two seconds.

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