Well, if you're going to bring another Top-10 football program into the Big Ten, you might as well get that road game out of the way early.

The Big Ten released its 2024 and 2025 football schedule on Thursday afternoon, and Iowa is looking at road games against two of the premier football programs in the nation: Ohio State and USC. Full Big Ten schedules for the Hawkeyes are below.

Also, with USC and UCLA joining the conference in 2024, the Big Ten announced a new scheduling model, which includes 1-3 protected opponents for each Big Ten school. Iowa will use its full allotment of protected foes, with trophy games against Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin all locked in for yearly play.

NOTE: Dates have not yet been set by the Big Ten. Opponents listed alphabetically.

@Illinois
Maryland
@Minnesota
Nebraska
@Ohio State
@Rutgers
UCLA
@USC
Wisconsin

@Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
@Nebraska
Northwestern
Penn State
@Purdue
@Wisconsin

The Big Ten has evidently figured out the logistics of an unbalanced number of protected opponents per school, and that looks to be beneficial for both longtime members like Iowa, who will continue to see all of its rivalry trophies contested every year, and for newcomers with few natural rivals who could use a more diverse season-to-season schedule.

And for as daunting as a 16-team conference sounds, it's worth noting that every single Big Ten team is on Iowa's schedule in either 2024 or 2025, even with the protected rivalries. If that pattern holds up longterm (and the Big Ten stays at 16 teams, of course), then every four-year player should expect to play at every Big Ten stadium during his career.

Wisconsin's inclusion on the protected rivalry list is especially welcome, for multiple reasons. Not only had the Heartland Trophy game become the Big Ten West's most important divisional game (and by a healthy distance), but Iowa and Wisconsin had let the Big Ten cannibalize that game twice in previous expansions — Penn State's addition in 1994 and the ill-fated Legends and Leaders divisional expansion in 2010.

Simply put: the Big Ten owed Iowa and Wisconsin this preservation of tradition, and the two schools got it.

Of course, adding a pair of premier programs* means adding a greater degree of difficulty, and while not every season will have road trips to two of the three strongest programs in the new Big Ten, some might — like 2024.

*UCLA, for all its recent bungling, has been bowl-eligible in 20 of the last 30 seasons and is every bit as capable of being a perennial 9-win team as the Hawhekeyes.

That challenge also comes with the potential for tremendous reward if Iowa manages to win even one of those two road games; the College Football Playoff is also expanding, and a marquee road win could put Iowa on the trajectory for a top-12 finish and its first shot at competing for a title since the sport established a championship with the BCS in 1998.

The splashiest games on this slate are the two roadies with Ohio State and USC, both in 2024. 2024 also features Maryland, Nebraska, UCLA and Wisconsin (plus Iowa State in Week 2) coming to Kinnick Stadium alongside "guarantee games" against Illinois State and Troy. A lot can change around a football program in 12 months, but there aren't many plausible scenarios where Iowa can't sell out the season once the summer of 2024 rolls around.

And yet, the 2025 slate looks every bit as entertaining — if with a little less opportunity for splashy wins and thus margin for error. Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern and Penn State make for a more traditional home slate (with FAU and UMass filling things out in September), but on paper that looks like an extremely competitive home slate — and some real road tests in Wisconsin and Nebraska, presuming Matt Rhule hasn't become the latest head coach to botch a Lincoln rebuild at that point.

Put simply: it's very, very difficult to imagine what else Iowa fans could have asked for with this realignment and new format. As long as the rivalry with ISU also stays intact, the Hawkeyes will be competing for all four of their trophies every year, the conference both capable and (evidently) willing to put every Big Ten team on the schedule once every couple years, and hey: USC and UCLA are in the mix now too.

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