Previewing 2020 Big Ten football season: A Saturday Blitz Podcast

In addition to a special interview with Scott Jedlicka of COVIDCFB.com, this week’s Saturday Blitz Podcast breaks down all the Big Ten football storylines.

The Big Ten was the first Power Five conference to move entirely to a league-only schedule in 2020. In addition to eliminating some great non-conference games and leaving major gaps on opponents’ schedules, the move also ensures that each Big Ten team will have a fight on their hands to reach bowl eligibility this season.

This week in the Saturday Blitz Podcast, we break down the big storylines in the Big Ten as well as analyzing the fortunes for each conference team. The first segment focuses on the league as a whole, breaking down the impact of the move to conference-only play and some of the key non-conference games now lost from the schedule.

Then, in our second segment, Zach sits down with Scott Jedlicka, an assistant professor at Washington State University who has maintained the COVIDCFB.com website over the past few months. Jedlicka opens up about what motivated him to start the website, his methodologies for analyzing the data, and the challenges in compiling the information. He also breaks down the daily report cards he compiles for each FBS and FCS program, explaining how they correlate to NCAA policies around COVID-19.

In the spirit of this week’s preview, Jedlicka also offers his thoughts as to why the Big Ten has graded so highly in his daily report cards relative to other Power Five conferences. Before concluding the interview, we also find out what our guest ultimately hopes fans might get out of access to this treasure trove of information.

You can access our interview with Jedlicka beginning at 14:25 after our first break.

After the second break, John and Zach return to breaking down each Big Ten team and how each division might stack up in 2020. Beginning with the West in the third segment and continuing with the East in the final segment, the podcast concludes with our picks for who will emerge atop each division and which team will come out victorious as the conference champion. We also answer whether that champion looks like a legitimate College Football Playoff candidate despite the lack of non-conference data points.

Tune in through the player above or download to your device to listen on the go!

The Saturday Blitz Podcast is part of the FanSided Radio Network at Spreaker. The show goes live every Wednesday morning. You can reach John Mitchell at @jlmitchell93 and Zach Bigalke at @zbigalke on Twitter.