Chicago, Illinois - In what will be the end of an era, the Big Ten Conference will reportedly keep its current divisional structure for one more season before reconfiguring when UCLA and USC join the conference.

During the preseason, USC and UCLA took the college football world by storm when they decided to leave the Pac-12 Conference for the Big Ten.

While the conference realignment raised many eyebrows and questions, the Big Ten has seemingly hit back with some answers.

The conference has decided to keep their division structure next year – the final season before the California schools depart the Pac-12.

Big Ten executives considered implementing a single-conference entity for the 2023 season instead of the current geographic divisions, but that has reportedly caused too many issues.

Some of those problems concerning to conference administrators and school officials included the desire to unveil one new system for USC and UCLA rather than changes over multiple seasons, the number of protected games (like the national headlining Ohio State-Michigan rivalry game), and television rights.

Over the summer, the Big Ten announced its mega seven-year media rights deal with FOX, CBS, and NBC that is set to begin next season and is projected to bring in more than $7 billion.

Maintaining the current East-West division structure for a final season will allow the league’s new media partners to showcase two postseason races and air the conference's most attractive rivalry games.

The Big Ten Conference will announce its schedule for the 2023-24 college football season later this week.