Joel Klatt calls Big Ten’s 2026 college football schedule 'wildly imbalanced'

Following the release of the Big Ten's 2026 college football schedule, Fox analyst Joel Klatt called the results "wildly imbalanced," with teams like Ohio State and Michigan facing a very difficult slate next season.

Fox college football analyst Joel Klatt saw a wide disparity between schedule difficulties in the Big Ten after the Conference released their 2026 slate last week. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The Big Ten Conference released the 2026 in-conference schedules for all 18 teams last Tuesday, January 27. Each program will play nine games against conference opponents in 2026, and not everyone believes the way the Big Ten structured those schedules was fair.

On the Monday edition of The Joel Klatt Show, the Fox College Football analyst determined the Conference had constructed schedules for next season that were very difficult for some member schools, while other schools in the conference will face much easier competition.

“This is not unique to the Big Ten,” Klatt noted. “This is the era of super conferences, and we’re going to have really imbalanced schedules. The obvious culprit is the size of the conference itself.”

The Indiana Hoosiers became the third straight Big Ten program to win College Football's National Championship last month. | Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Big Ten expanded from 14 football-playing programs to 18 before the start of the 2024 college football season, adding Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington. It has not actually been a ten-team conference, as its name implies, since 1990 when Penn State was added as the 11th member.

Despite the size of the conference and the relative imbalance of schedules for individual members, Big Ten teams have won the last three College Football National Championships. The Indiana Hoosiers were the most recent champions, taking the title after defeating Miami 27-21 on January 19 to win the College Football Playoff.

Indiana’s title came after Ohio State won the National Championship in the first year of an expanded Big Ten and Michigan won in the final year when the Conference was still at 14 teams. If either of those two programs are going to add to their national championship trophy case next season, they will need to do so with what Klatt called two of the most difficult Big Ten schedules in 2026.

Klatt ranked Ohio State’s 2026 schedule as the Big Ten’s most difficult and Michigan’s as the second-most difficult. Northwestern’s schedule rounded out the Top 3 most difficult 2026 schedules in the Big Ten in Klatt’s estimation.

“Ohio State, by a wide margin, has what I would call the toughest schedule in the Big Ten,” Klatt said. “That schedule is daunting.”

Ryan Day and his Ohio State Buckeyes team have a difficult schedule to manage in 2026 if they hope to win their second title in three seasons. | Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Buckeyes, who were the No. 2 seed in the most recent College Football Playoff before losing to Miami in the quarterfinals, has a difficult non-conference game at Texas in Week 2 of the 2026 season, before playing a Big Ten schedule that includes five teams that ended the 2025 season ranked among the Top 25 teams in the Associated Press’ poll.

On the flipside, Klatt gave Penn State, Illinois and Iowa the three easiest 2026 schedules in the Big Ten. That is welcome news for new Penn State head coach Matt Campbell, who will take over the Nittany Lions after leading Iowa State for the previous ten seasons. 

“Penn State… their schedule is a potential ten-win schedule,” Klatt said. “If you would have known this schedule before this hiring process, guys would have clamored to take the Penn State job.”

New Penn State head coach Matt Campbell, left, got a soft schedule in his first season at the helm in State College. | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

Other teams that Klatt saw getting favorable schedules from the Big Ten in 2026 were Michigan State and Wisconsin. The defending conference and national champion, Indiana, did not have a schedule that Klatt ranked too difficult or easy compared to the rest of the conference. 

The majority of schools in the Big Ten will kick off their 2026 seasons on Saturday, September 5, which is Labor Day Weekend. No Big Ten programs are slated to play in Week 0, which will feature four FBS games on August 29, including North Carolina and TCU kicking off in Dublin, Ireland.