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Heather Dinich, ESPN Senior Writer
INDIANAPOLIS — Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said the Big Ten should have four teams in the 12-team College Football Playoff every year because of how difficult the league will be with the additions of USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon.
The 18-team Big Ten will play a nine-game conference schedule without divisions, and the five highest-ranked conference champions will earn a spot in the playoff along with the next seven highest-ranked teams.
“In the Big Ten we have to go to someone else’s stadium in our league five times and duke it out,” Rhule said. “But I think we’ll have a lot of access to the College Football Playoff. I think four teams from this league should get in every year because this is the best league. This is the NFL of college football in my mind.
“That’s not to diminish any other league,” he said. “The SEC is amazing. These other leagues are great, but the challenge in the Big Ten is going to be really difficult.”
Rhule, speaking to reporters on Wednesday at Big Ten media day at Lucas Oil Stadium, will face UCLA and travel to USC in back-to-backs weeks in November. He joked that had their sport administrator told him he was going to add USC and UCLA to the nonconference schedule in the past, he would have “thrown a fit.”
“I’m not playing those guys!” he said, laughing. “Well, here they are.”
Rhule spoke about a newfound confidence at Nebraska that indicates the once-storied program is on the brink of significant improvement, but he also acknowledged it comes at a time when the Big Ten just became more difficult. The Huskers finished under .500 for the seventh straight season, but five of those losses were by seven points or fewer.
“I think you can tell when a team is ready to make the turn from their body language and the way that they walk around the building,” he said. “When I walk through our locker rooms and I walk through our weight rooms and when I walk out on our field, I see a team that understands that games are going to come down to the final seconds, and the narrative about close losses, you turn that into close wins.”