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What would Illinois Football's schedule look like if the Big Ten eliminated divisions?

Good morning. Welcome to the Orange Minute for Thursday, June 16.

By Jim Vainisi
Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

The Big Ten's current divisional format for football is completely unbalanced. While playing Purdue every single year may be a great thing for the Fighting Illini, having the conference's top four programs on one side is bad for scheduling. Not only that, but it severely reduces the significance of the title game when only one team has a shot at the College Football Playoff.

So what if the Big Ten decided to completely scrap the current system and start over? What would that look like? SB Nation imagined the scenario while outlining the potential benefits of a division-less league.

Under this proposed format, each program would have three protected rivalry games that would take place on an annual basis. This approach would guarantee that each team would play the other 10 schools three times every five seasons. That seems pretty fair, and it could set up some truly great Big Ten title matches (i.e. Ohio State/Michigan, Illinois/Wisconsin, etc.).

So what would Illinois' schedule look like in this scenario? Well the protected rivalries would likely be Northwestern, Ohio State, and Purdue because those three games already have shared trophies. The other six contests would obviously be rotating every season, so we wouldn't have any more awkward 4-year stretches without playing Iowa.

Is this something you'd like to see the Big Ten adopt? Let us know what you think down in the comments.

Illinois Fighting Illini News

- Bleacher Report names Malcolm Hill one of top seniors in college basketball (TCR)

Hill averaged 18.1 points, 6.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.2 steals per game last year while shooting 43.6% from the field. Only three other players (Ben Simmons, Denzel Valentine, and Thomas Walkup) managed to achieve those numbers.

- Top-50 Illini Football players of 2016: Zach Grant (The News-Gazette)

The former standout at St. Ambrose, who transferred to Illinois from Northern Illinois and sat out the 2013 season, has only one catch in his Illini career — a 7-yard reception — but was a fixture on special teams last year as the team's holder.

- 2019 F E.J. Liddell visited Illinois on Wednesday (Illini Inquirer)

The Belleville West high school star averaged around 18 points and 6 rebounds per game as a freshman. Getting Liddell on campus early was a good move for John Groce and the Fighting Illini.

- Two Illini golfers teeing off at 2016 U.S. Open (Daily Herald)

[Nick] Hardy and [Charlie] Danielson are amateurs going against the world's best professionals, including defending champion Jordan Spieth and veteran Chicago area touring pros Kevin Streelman and Luke Donald.