So, I have no inside information on what the schedule is going to be, but there's two pieces of information that we can go from to extrapolate what it might be.
The first is that the Big Ten announced it would use the original schedule, minus one conference game, for the abbreviated 8-game season.
The second is that Bill Moos as stated that he hopes the Big Ten will allow our Iowa game to be moved to Black Friday.
That tells us they're likely our opponent the weekend of 11/28, meaning the schedule likely looks like this:
10/24 - Purdue (Lincoln)
10/31 - Northwestern (Evanston)
11/7 - Illinois (Lincoln)
11/14 - Ohio State (Columbus)
11/21 - Penn State (Lincoln)
11/28 - Iowa (Lincoln) **11/27**
12/5 - Wisconsin (Madison)
12/12 - Minnesota (Lincoln)
This is the exact schedule we had originally, minus Rutgers. As discussed earlier in the thread, that would give us the most watchable games against the most compelling teams, with the intent of driving as many eyeballs to TVs as possible.
If this is the case, that means we start the season against two teams that finished with fewer than five wins, Purdue and Northwestern, who went 4-8 and 3-9 last year. Amazingly, one of those four wins for Purdue was against us, so hopefully that's some good motivation.
Next up would be Illinois, whom we beat last year but who made a bowl game (which they lost), finishing 6-7. But Lovie Smith has the Illini trending upward, and if you recall, they hit like a ton of bricks in that game last year. We had to mount a comeback after trailing 35-24 late in the third quarter.
Then we would hit a gauntlet of five straight teams who won 10 or more games last year. Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, who finished last season a combined 55-12. Nebraska played four of these teams last year and went 0-4, losing by an average of 37-15.