Teams on the Big Ten’s western front face scheduling quirks that create challenges unique to college football in the conference realignment era. USC’s Lincoln Riley pointed some of them out this week, and Oregon’s Dan Lanning made it clear ahead of his marquee clash with No. 3 Penn State that he is not thrilled with the league’s scheduling decisions.
The Nittany Lions are fresh off a bye week, while No. 6 Oregon has a cross-country trip to make on the heels of a rivalry game. That disparity stuck out to Lanning as a potential advantage to Penn State and a jab from the league office at his Ducks.
“We’re traveling 15,000 miles this year, and we play seven teams that have more prep time than we do,” Lanning said to John Canzano. “That’s unique, isn’t it? It’s almost like they didn’t want us in the Big Ten, or something, right? We snuck our way in, didn’t we?”
Six of the seven teams Lanning referenced as having more preparation time are Big Ten opponents. Northwestern and Rutgers both had or have Friday games the week before playing Oregon, giving them an additional day. Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and Penn State each have the luxury of full bye weeks prior to their matchups with the Ducks. The seventh team was a non-conference opponent in Oklahoma State, which played a Thursday game prior to its trip to Eugene.
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But this is not an Oregon-specific outlier and it is, frankly, part of what the Ducks signed up for when they joined the Big Ten. For instance, Washington faces five Big Ten teams on the heels of bye weeks this season. It is all part of the conference’s plan to mitigate the impacts of cross-country travel, which also affects the teams that have to fly to Eugene, Seattle and Los Angeles — not just the Ducks.
Lanning’s frustration is similar to Riley’s. The USC coach led his No. 21-ranked Trojans into battle last week at 8 p.m. PT, giving him a short turnaround before this week’s noon ET kickoff at No. 23 Illinois.
“Going from the absolute latest kick in the country to the absolute earliest kick in the country has its challenges,” Riley said. “But the challenges — like, it is what it is. We don’t make the schedule, clearly.”
Is the Big Ten doing its newest members a disservice, or is this just the cost of doing business in a conference that spans from coast to coast? Lanning and Riley seem to think it is the former.
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