6 Teams That Will Benefit From Divisionless Scheduling In 2024

The 2024 college football season marks an era of change in hundreds of different ways. 

One of the quieter changes is the dissolution of divisions across most conferences. The movement toward mega-conferences and away from geographic contiguity has given way to a divisionless approach to scheduling.

For many teams, the change in scheduling approach won’t have a major impact on their record. They’ve still got to line up on Saturdays and play games against peer programs.

In a few key instances, though, the move away from conferences is actually a pretty big deal.  That means altering expectations for the season and possibly even targeting some win totals or other futures in the various college football odds markets. 

Here are a handful of teams from the upcoming 2024 season that are thankful their old divisions are dead and buried.

Michigan

The Big Ten implemented a championship game in 2011, and much of the ensuing football has been utterly dominated by Michigan and Ohio State. Nobody has won the conference outside of those two since 2016; nobody from the former Big Ten West has won since 2012. 

Because Michigan and Ohio State have dominated the conference over most of the last decade, it stands to reason that whichever team doesn’t have the upper hand in a given year stands to gain a lot from the dissolution of the Big Ten East. 

While Michigan may be the reigning national champion with three straight wins against the Buckeyes, every indicator from this offseason (including the college football betting odds) points toward this being a big year for Ohio State.

The bright side for Michigan fans is that they’ll still have a path to the Big Ten title game that doesn’t include winning the Big Ten East.

Penn State

If you think the loser of Michigan vs. Ohio State has had it bad, consider the case of Penn State. 

The Nittany Lions commonly finish as a top 15 team in end-of-year polls, yet Penn State hasn’t won the Big Ten East since 2016. 

That uphill struggle is finally set to end in 2024. Penn State no longer has to look up the division standings at the other two; in fact, they’ll host Ohio State in Happy Valley and dodge Michigan completely. The schedule also calls for games against Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota, and Maryland, among others. 

As I wrote in my College Football Playoff odds article, Penn State is one of the teams that will benefit the most from all the structural changes to college football that fans are about to see. Bet accordingly.

Missouri

It’s probably true that the SEC West has been a little better than the SEC East for several years, at least on balance. But it’s rare that either division is a total power vacuum, which means good-not-great teams always have someone to go through at the top of the standings. 

That’s no longer the case for a potential playoff team like Missouri. In previous years, the Tigers would have had to navigate tough games against Georgia or Tennessee, and the division would whittle itself down. 

Instead, take a look at Missouri’s 2024 schedule: no Georgia, no Tennessee, no Texas, no Ole Miss. This is a best-of-both-worlds schedule draw for Missouri that includes against Oklahoma, South Carolina, Mississippi State, Auburn, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas – all winnable.

The biggest tests will be road contests at Texas A&M and Alabama, both of which are high-variance outcomes because of the coaching changes and general turnover. Missouri has as good a chance as any SEC team to go 12-0 this year.

Indiana

Indiana is the poster child for a program that is utterly annihilated by its relative position inside of a division. The Hoosiers have been the whipping boys of the Big Ten for decades, routinely pounded on by superior Midwestern football traditions with greater access to talent and resources.

The people in charge of Indiana football understood what a grand opportunity lay before them in 2024, which is why they fired Tom Allen at the end of last year and laid out an unprecedented (by Indiana standards) contract for former James Madison head coach Curt Cignetti. With divisions gone, Indiana now has a critical window to change the narrative on its fortunes.

For 2024, the Hoosiers happened to draw Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State – all old nemeses. Yet Indiana also has numerous winnable games against Maryland, Nebraska, Washington, UCLA, and Purdue, plus a soft nonconference schedule. 

Indiana should compete for seven wins for the first time since 2019, and there could be bigger gains around the corner. Currently, Indiana’s win total for 2024: 5.5.

Rutgers

Perhaps you’re noticing a pattern here with the Big Ten East, but in truth, Rutgers actually compares more to Missouri as a team that got dealt a lucky schedule in the divisionless format. 

The Scarlet Knights dodge Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. They’ll play a heavy diet of old Big Ten West teams – Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska – plus three of the four Pac-12 imports. 

With 16 starters back and a very winnable schedule, Greg Schiano could post his best record in Piscataway since the Big East days. And with Rutgers’ win total at the BetMGM online sportsbook currently sitting at 6.5, with the over side priced at +120, this is probably my favorite bet of the bunch. 

NC State

Okay, so technically the ACC already moved away from the divisional model last season. Seasoned readers may remember this, since I was (correctly) big on the Boston College win total last year specifically because of the divisionless schedule changes.

NC State is a much steadier program than BC, having won at least eight games for four straight seasons. But even if it’s Year 2 of the divisionless approach on the East Coast, it’s still worth pointing out how easy this NC State schedule is. 

The Wolfpack draw Clemson and rival North Carolina, sure. But between those two games, they play Northern Illinois, Wake Forest, Syracuse, Cal, Stanford, Duke, and Georgia Tech. Only two are away from Raleigh. There are a lot of wins there.