Leaked Big Ten Document Shows Both Kansas And Virginia On Future Illinois Schedules

On Wednesday the Big Ten announced conference schedules for the 2018 and 2019 seasons, but the conference may have leaked more information than it originally planned to.

As FBSchedules informs us, there was a PDF document that was linked to on BTN.com that was removed, but The Daily Collegian saved it and it is still viewable using Google's cache. Now what's interesting about the document is that it shows non-conference games for Big Ten schools that haven't been announced as of yet.

And that includes Illinois.

According to the document the Illini have games scheduled against Kansas in 2019 and 2020, and games scheduled with Virginia in 2021 and 2022. The home games take place in 2020 and 2022.

So if these games are scheduled, why haven't we heard about them? Well, I contacted the school to find out and it turns out it's because the contracts aren't complete.

"We had some place-holders on future schedules that were shared with the Big Ten, and they were obviously inadvertently released by the BTN on their website," associate athletic director Kent Brown told The Champaign Room. "Once we have completed contracts with future opponents, we will confirm with a press release."

In other words, while the Illini may schedule both Kansas and Virginia in the future, nothing is official yet.

Still, I like where the school's head is at here. With the move to a nine-game conference schedule and the Big Ten agreement of not scheduling FCS schools, these are the kind of games I'd like to be scheduled.

Both Kansas and Virginia are members of the five power conferences, but neither is a historical football power. So they would be games that are both winnable and look good on the schedule.

I hope they become official eventually.

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