The more I look at it the more I hate our schedule this year, but not for what was brought up in the OP.
What I hate is if we beat Oregon there's a good chance we'll be 7-0 going into the tough stretch. That isn't really a complaint, and obviously it's what everyone wants, but we're all going to be excited and our hearts are going to be in it thinking there's a chance this is a great season and then we could easily lose to Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Iowa. It would be nice if we played one of the 3 early in the season.
Don't get me wrong though, I think we'll win at least 1 and maybe 2 of them and I don't think we'll get blown out.
My bigger problem with how the conference set up the schedule is that we play all three of those on the road.
It stinks for the team and as a fan, our home conference schedule sucks.
It seems like this is the issue every year since joining B1G. We end up with one year of awesome home slate, next is horrible...
Yeah, I agree that it stinks, but it's just one of the issues with large conferences and the difficulties of working through the teams in the opposite division.
EDIT--Although the conference should have done a better job with the schedules for Iowa, NU, and Wisky for the West Division. Looking at things historically, those are top 3 teams in the West. Those teams should play 1 on the road and 1 at home each year, but Iowa gets both at home this year, while NU has both on the road this year.