UCLA and USC will each travel more than 15,000 miles roundtrip in conference play

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BleedGopher

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per CBS:

When the Big Ten unveiled its new scheduling format for the 2024 and 2025 seasons earlier this week, which eliminates divisions and protects specific rivalries upon the impending arrival of USC and UCLA, it created a grueling dynamic: No other conference in major college football requires certain members to make true cross-country road trips like the ones the Bruins and Trojans will embark upon in their debut seasons.

UCLA and USC will each travel more than 15,000 miles roundtrip in conference play during their inaugural Big Ten season. In 2024 alone, the Bruins will travel to Rutgers, which is more than 4,800 miles roundtrip, while USC travels to Maryland and Penn State, each of which are more than 4,400 miles roundtrip.

The team who travels the most in Big Ten play behind the Southern California schools is Nebraska -- and USC and UCLA are traveling over 225% more than Nebraska's 7,022 mile roundtrip conference schedule. Purdue and Indiana travel the least in the conference next fall, and the new schools will travel 618% more miles than its conference foes.

UCLA also has trips to Hawaii and LSU booked on the 2024 schedule. So, in total, the Bruins will travel over 25,000 miles roundtrip. UCLA's shortest conference road trip is to Iowa, which is 3,082 miles roundtrip.

www.cbssports.com

Big Ten football schedule: Distance each team will travel in 2024 season when USC, UCLA join conference

A few teams in the Big Ten Conference will be racking up airline miles when the league expands in the 2024 season
www.cbssports.com www.cbssports.com

Go Gophers!!
 

8. Minnesota​

Total miles traveled for Big Ten away games: 6,258
Longest trips: UCLA (3,042), Indiana, Michigan

Minnesota heads to the Rose Bowl to play UCLA in 2024, but will get a break in 2025 as it hosts USC instead of traveling back to California. Minnesota also only has four road conference games next season.

www.cbssports.com

Big Ten football schedule: Distance each team will travel in 2024 season when USC, UCLA join conference

A few teams in the Big Ten Conference will be racking up airline miles when the league expands in the 2024 season
www.cbssports.com www.cbssports.com

Go Gophers!!
 


Would UCLA fly to Cedar Rapids for the trip to Iowa? Even so, it doesn't make sense to me that a rt to Iowa City is farther than the Gophers rt to LA unless IC is further east than I'm thinking!
 

I assume USC and UCLA were aware of the travel issues when they agreed to join the B1G.

Now, would those travel issues be mitigated if there were more B1G teams in the Western time zone? Yes, they would be mitigated at least somewhat.

I suspect there will be more B1G teams "out west" at some point in the future. whether that is in 1 year, 2 years or 5 years I can't say. But I think the odds are better than 50/50 that it will happen.
 


There were some fans are both teams who were using the travel argument to discourage both schools from joining the Big 10.

If these teams are taking the bus every week I get it… but I don’t think that’s the case.

The TV contracts are enormous. I think we can quit pretending that these teams are the little sisters of the poor going on their yearly field trip.
 

UCLA has road games at Hawaii, Rutgers, LSU, Iowa, Indiana, and Michigan in 2024.
 

Some of the travel could be eased for USC/UCLA by scheduling a road conference game week 1 which would presumably be before classes start.

Regardless no class on Labor Day, for recovery. Might even help for it to be on a Thur or Fri night.
 

This is all over Twitter today, like it is the first time anyone thought of this.
 



I’m seriously considering a UCLA road trip next year.

Somehow I can do it.
 


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