USC and UCLA won’t make the Big 10 easy.
The football schedule for the debut 2024 season, released by the conference on Thursday, includes a lot of traditional authority.
USC will likely face Michigan, Penn State and Wisconsin at a time when Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Caleb Williams may be leaving to try his luck in the NFL.
UCLA wins Michigan and Ohio State will also play Louisiana State during the season, ending all the jokes about the Bruins’ recent eased schedule involving Football Championship Subdistrict opponents.
No schedule or order of opponents has been announced. UCLA’s first Big 10 schedule includes road games against Michigan, Indiana, Iowa and Rutgers, plus Ohio State, Northwestern, Nebraska, Minnesota and USC in the Rose Bowl.
“The football program is very focused on the 2023 season and it’s going to be a great season,” said UCLA Athletic Director Martin Jarmond. “That said, I’m excited to see what future conference matches our fans can experience at the Rose Bowl.”
USC’s 2024 conference schedule includes games from Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois at the Coliseum, plus road games against Penn State, Purdue, Maryland, Northwestern and UCLA.
The Trojans and Bruins have another common opponent in 2024, LSU. UCLA will travel to Baton Rouge to face the Tigers, while USC will face the Tigers in a neutral field game at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
It’s good that the college football playoffs are expanding to 12 teams starting with the 2024 season. Because even the top teams in the Big Ten are likely to lose at least a few games given such a demanding schedule. The upside is that the conference might be able to get more than three of his teams into his CFP due to the strength of the schedule factor.
As expected, Trojans and Bruins will rack up a lot of mileage. Aside from the Rose Bowl trip, USC’s four other conference road games in 2024 will require more than 2,000 miles of travel. UCLA’s closest road conference game this season will be in Iowa City, Iowa, about 2,796 miles from Los Angeles. The Bruins also plan to travel about 4,751 miles to face Rutgers after flying to Hawaii for a non-conference game. You may want to budget for hiring a jet lag expert.
As part of the announced schedule for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, Big Ten teams won’t have to travel to Los Angeles twice during the season.
Conference commissioner Tony Petiti said in an interview with the Big Ten Network that the idea of the schedule model was to keep games that matter to Big Ten fans. With the addition of the LA school, Petiti said he hopes the team will rotate more opponents more often. Each Big Ten team is guaranteed to play against each other at least once every two years.
The Big Ten division will be discontinued starting in 2024, and teams will play with up to three protected rivals each season, none of which Penn State has. Not surprisingly, USC and UCLA will be each other’s only protected rivals.
As part of the so-called Flex Protect Plus schedule model, each team will face three opponents home and away in 2024 and 2025. In addition to UCLA, USC will play Penn State and Wisconsin each season, while the Bruins will play Nebraska and Wisconsin. Rutgers.
The Trojans will face Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State, so they won’t be able to take a break as part of the 2025 conference schedule. UCLA will face Pennsylvania State, Wisconsin State and Michigan State as part of the 2025 Big Ten schedule. The Bruins’ 2025 schedule also includes a home game against two-time defending U.S. champions Georgia.
By then, UCLA and USC will need to smash a powerhouse parade as part of a new conference tie-up in order to be a big success.
