Putting together the four-team College Football Playoff field was going to be different than usual this season because of the different looks to conference schedules around the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Now, the Big Ten’s return with a nine-game conference-only schedule starting in late October adds another element.But what sort of impact all of this will have on the field is something Iowa athletics director Gary Barta, who is the head of the playoff selection committee, doesn’t want to consider right now.

“You’ve heard this before, but it’s true and it’s still going to be in play — we’re going to take the protocols, and we’re going to meet every week, and we’re going to have 13 people in the room, and they’re going to have watched every team play,” Barta said on Thursday.

“And based on whatever body of work is before us — and it will be different this year — but whatever body of work is before us we’re going to select the best four teams. And it will be different this year. But I have a lot of confidence in the 13 people in that room. They have a lot of knowledge. They’re going to watch every game. And we’re going to come out with the top four teams, and then our full ranking as well.”

The Big Ten season will begin the weekend of October 23-24, and end with games on December 19. There will be eight regular-season games — two non-division and six divisional games — and then a final week of the season with games based on positional match-ups, including a conference championship game.Other conferences around the nation are playing different schedules, which will lead to different bodies of work for the committee to consider.

What that looks like now, Barta said, won’t matter when the committee begins deliberating in November.

“What we all have agreed to is we’re not going to play out hypotheticals on September 17,” Barta said. “What we’re going to do is see what we’re looking at in our first week (of deliberation). We’ll see how much the body of work has accumulated across the board and see what we’re dealing with. And then we’ll start to make that assessment. But prior to that, we’re not going to guess how many games everybody is going to play. We’re going to let it accumulate and then once we get together the first week, we’ll start evaluating what’s in front of us.”