A look at the Big Ten’s first coast-to-coast season: Does the conference have concerns?

Given the challenges associated with scheduling an 18-team conference and traveling from coast to coast, the readily available aspirin tablets seem appropriate at many Big Ten events.

In football alone, there are 26 Big Ten trips either to or from the Pacific Time Zone this fall, 16 of which have already been completed. The home teams are 11-5 in those games and 9-7 against the spread. But at one point the home team had won eight of nine games, causing consternation about the Big Ten’s journey.

Big Ten chief operating officer Kerry Kenny acknowledged that there has been a lot of talk about how opponents who travel two or more time zones away have fared.

“If you take into account the competitive factor between the teams that were favorites to win versus the teams that were underdogs, whether home or away, I think there’s just a lot of information there,” Kenny said. “Before we make any decisions as a conference in collaboration with our schools, media partners, etc., we will just have to wait and see how the rest of this year unfolds.”

Beyond the well-being of student-athletes, there are numerous logistical issues with cross-country travel. For example, the equipment truck from Illinois set off Tuesday on a 2,155-mile trip to Eugene, Oregon, for Saturday’s Illini Ducks game. Penn State had to travel more than an hour by bus to Harrisburg to fly its charter planes to USC because the runways at State College’s small airport are not long enough for larger planes.

For players traveling east, “body clock” is a problem. Both UCLA and Washington were scheduled to play two games within three weeks when it seems like 9 a.m. to someone living in the Pacific time zone. UCLA split its games at Penn State (loss) and Rutgers (win), while Washington forfeited its first trip (Iowa) and travels to Indiana this week.

“If it were up to me, I would rather wake up and play football than wake up and then wait all day,” USC’s 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush said in an interview with The athlete.

The Big Ten focused much of its football program on reducing travel effects for the newcomers to the West Coast as well as the other 14 programs. With a 14-week schedule, the league used the two scheduled free games to ensure that USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington were either idle or playing a home game after traveling to the Eastern or Central time zones.

All 14 schools in the Eastern and Central time zones have a road trip to the West and eight have a bye upon return. The other six have home games. No team was scheduled to play away games that crossed multiple time zones in consecutive weeks.

Kenny said the Big Ten’s approach is to use the expanded conference’s early seasons to process feedback from a range of areas such as sports medicine, academics, operations, equipment and more, from football and other sports.

“Let’s try to gather that feedback every week of the season and avoid making rash decisions in the middle of a conference season,” Kenny said. “Let’s take this opportunity to make sure we improve from year one to year two, from year two to year three and beyond.”

This week, Rutgers faces the most daunting start of any squad in the Eastern or Central time zone. The Scarlet Knights travel to USC on Friday for kickoff at 11 p.m. ET. It was designed to follow Game 1 of the World Series. Having teams from New York and Los Angeles compete back-to-back in both sports is a bonus for Fox.

At the league’s spring meetings near Los Angeles, Big Ten vice president of football administration AJ Edds urged coaches in the Eastern and Central time zones to prepare for a late kickoff on the West Coast every three years.

“When he said it, I said, ‘Well, luck of the draw,'” Rutgers coach Greg Schiano said this summer. “Then the schedule was released in this meeting. I said, ‘There it is, 8 o’clock.’ I love it.’

“I’m not worried about the children. They go out at this time. That’s me and (offensive coordinator Kirk) Ciarrocca. That’s what you need to worry about.”

Puzzle on Friday

In the final stages of the Big Ten’s quick courtship with Washington and Oregon in August 2023, commissioner Tony Petitti struck a deal with Fox to generate additional funding for those two programs. In return, the Big Ten provided Fox with a full package of Friday night games.

This year, it included 10 Friday/Thursday games on Fox and six additional Thursday/Friday games on FS1 or Big Ten Network, of which Fox owns 61 percent. There are also four more on the West Coast with kick-off late Saturday evening. A few more games later this season could be broadcast in this time slot.

Since 2017, when there were only two games outside of Labor Day and Thanksgiving weekends, Friday football has caused difficulties for coaches. But those contests were often given to schools that wanted to play on Friday nights, and the games were among the lowest-priority matchups. With what Fox has provided for this package, the current games are mid-range. They feature teams that interest a wide audience, but aren’t necessarily a game CBS or NBC would have designed.

“The league is committed to making Friday night successful and putting together great matchups on Friday,” Petitti said The athlete. “It’s about balancing all of those things.”

Counting the two Black Friday matches on CBS and NBC, 15 schools play on at least one non-Saturday, while 12 play on at least two. Michigan State and Rutgers have three games outside of Saturday. Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan do not play on Fridays.

Ratings and logistics play a role in keeping this trio off Friday nights. These three are easily the biggest TV draws in the Big Ten. Last year, Michigan appeared in five of college football’s 15 highest-rated games, including the first three. Ohio State played in four of the top 11 and two Penn State games were in the top 15. Most weeks, one of the Big Ten’s three media rights partners drafted a game involving one of the three, which kept them out of Friday. Additionally, all three must play at least two games on BTN each year, including one conference game.

Since all three teams have stadiums with a capacity of more than 105,000 spectators, it is almost impossible to organize a game day during a university workday. Iowa has volunteered to play on Labor Day weekend and Black Friday outside of Saturday, but will not host a Friday game on any other day because the hospital system is located across the street from Kinnick Stadium.

Nebraska avoided Friday home games until this year, when it was scheduled to play Illinois on Sept. 21. With a capacity of over 85,000 and a sellout streak since 1962, Memorial Stadium hosts more people on game day than any other city in Nebraska except Omaha and Lincoln. To manage traffic flow that night, the university canceled in-person classes.

After the game, which Illinois won 31-24 in overtime, Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen submitted a formal request to Big Ten officials not to play home games on Fridays, except for Black Friday against Iowa.

“I don’t want to get into that,” Petitti said of Nebraska’s request. “When we talked about Fridays, we left out the situation in Nebraska. We’re not trying to be disruptive and spread the burden of Fridays across just a handful of schools. We try to make sure we are fair and spread things out. In some places it might be easier. They might want to play more, so it’s just a matter of understanding that and learning.”

Maryland only played in one Friday game this fall, and that was at Northwestern. Among those raising their hand for Friday’s home games is athletic director Damon Evans.

“I used to be really against Friday night football,” Evans said this spring. “I remember working in Georgia; We wouldn’t play on Friday night. Some of the teams in our league will not be playing on Friday night. But if you look at it from an overall football perspective and trying to build our program, Friday night football is good for Maryland.”

However, Michigan refuses to play on Friday night, whether home or away.

“There are certain tolerances in our scheduling format that we have to respect and that have always been part of the Big Ten,” Petitti said. “They are still there. It’s not just an institution.”

Looking ahead

Last fall, the Big Ten announced the rotation of its opponents through the 2028 season. Next fall will feature several high-profile matchups between the Big Ten’s newcomers and holdovers. These include Michigan at USC, Oregon at Penn State, Washington at Michigan, Ohio State at Washington, Oregon at Iowa, Indiana at Oregon, USC at Nebraska and USC at Illinois.

Other non-permanent rivalry games expected to draw attention include Penn State at Ohio State, Michigan at Nebraska, Penn State at Iowa, Penn State at Michigan State, Wisconsin at Michigan and Ohio State at Wisconsin. Of course, there’s always Ohio State in Michigan.

For the second year in a row, the 2025 schedule includes 14 weeks with two free games. The first weekend starts on August 30th and ends on November 29th.

“By placing the byes relative to home and away games, Friday games, especially early in conference play, we can kind of track what’s working better for schools than maybe we originally thought and vice versa,” Kenny said.

“There will be a bit of real-time feedback on the 25 schedule – there’s no specific date set as to when that will be done – just to make sure we’re looking at this comprehensively for next year.”

(Photo of Washington head coach Jedd Fisch: Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)