To any incoming freshmen who are reading the site: this post is for you! Yes, that’s right, you haven’t set foot on campus yet as a student nor purchased football tickets, but your last game as a student in Beaver Stadium will be against Nebraska on November 21st, 2015.

Monday morning, the Big Ten schedule for the 2015 and 2016 season was released. The full schedule can be viewed here. Below is the Nittany Lions’ slate which should feature Adam Breneman and Christian Hackenberg leading the team out of the tunnel along with the rest of the 2012 recruiting class. First for 2015:

• October 3 – vs. Illinois
• October 10 – at Ohio State
• October 17 – BYE
• October 24 – vs. Purdue
• October 31 – at Indiana
• November 7 – vs. Iowa
• November 14 – at Michigan State
• November 21 – vs. Nebraska
• November 28 – at Wisconsin

And now for 2016:

• October 1 – at Illinois
• October 8 – BYE
• October 15 – vs. Indiana
• October 22 – at Purdue
• October 29 – vs. Ohio State
• November 5 – at Iowa
• November 12 – vs. Michigan State
• November 19 – at Nebraska
• November 26 – vs. Wisconsin

Here are a few items of note:

Illinois and Indiana: Counting last season, Penn State faces Indiana or Illinois in five of its six Big Ten openers with the only exception being Minnesota in 2014.

Return of the Land Grant Trophy: From 1993 through 2010, Penn State and Michigan State played against each other in the Big Ten finale with the winner claiming the prestigious Land Grant Trophy. The beauty of that thing is almost blinding. After a hiatus from 2011-2014, Penn State will have a chance to win this sacrosanct piece of hardware again in 2015.

End of the Season Games: As mentioned above, the Penn State-Michigan State rivalry will be renewed, but it will not be the final game of the regular season as was historically the case. That’s because from now through at least 2016, teams will have the same end of the year opponent which means Penn State will face Wisconsin in late November on a regular basis. It can only get better after last year, right?

Alternating Home and Away: Penn State is the only Big Ten school that will alternate home and away games for both seasons, never playing consecutive conference games at home or on the road.

Rough November: It’s difficult to speculate on the state of these programs four years from now, but if it’s anything similar to now, Penn State faces a tough end to their schedule both seasons.

A full rundown of Penn State’s future schedules including 2013 and 2014 can be found here. Fancy renovated scoreboards, an improved out of conference schedule if Bill O’Brien has anything to say about it, and the return of the Land Grant Trophy are all coming to you in three years or less.