Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1518105
5 2 A P R I L 2 0 2 4 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M O P I N I O N M AT T H E R B M AT T. H E R B @ O N 3 . C O M W hen he was an assistant coach at Maryland nearly two decades ago, James Franklin got a sneak preview of the Big Ten's future. The Terrapins faced Cal in a home- and-home nonconference series in 2008 and '09, and those two cross- country matchups — the first in Col- lege Park, Md., the second in Berkeley, Calif. — offered a glimpse of the dif- ficulties involved in jumping three time zones to play a college football game. "They came to our place, and I think we played them at 11 a.m.," Franklin said. "That went very well for the East Coast team." The game actually kicked off at noon, but Franklin's point stands. Ranked No. 23 at the time, Cal kept hitting the snooze button, allowing the unranked Terps to build a 28-6 lead through three quarters en route to a 35-27 upset victory. A year later, however, it was Mary- land's turn to adapt to the effects of a three-hour time change. "We went out there, and I think it was a 7 p.m. game," Franklin recalled. "That went very well for the team from California." It did indeed. The Bears romped to a 52-19 victory in the rematch. While there is undoubtedly more at play than circadian rhythms when you give up 544 yards and 25 first downs as Maryland did that night, a lot of games are decided at the margins. Having to suit up when your body thinks it's ei- ther too early or too late to be playing football is surely going to have some effect. Starting this fall, the Big Ten is going to help us quantify it. Franklin said recently that Penn State has been working this offseason to develop a travel plan built around "best practices [of] NFL teams, col- lege teams and what they do. … That's probably where a lot of our time is be- ing spent — what is the best way to do this while still making sure that our guys are student-athletes and getting that type of experience." Some would say that a "best prac- tice" worth emulating would be for the conferences to orient themselves around longstanding regional rivalries and leave the cross-country jaunts for the postseason or the occasional non- conference matchup. Alas, to borrow a phrase that sounds more antiquated by the day, that ship has sailed. Penn State will play its first West Coast conference game on Oct. 12 when it travels to USC. In 2025, it will face UCLA in Pasadena, followed by trips to Washington in 2026 and Oregon 2027. In regular-season road games (or neutral-site games played in the vicinity of the other team's campus), the Lions have gone 5-7 against Pac-12 opponents. The most recent of those games was a 21-10 loss to USC in 1991, so there's a limit to what we can extrapolate. Still, that sub-.500 winning per- centage isn't unexpected, and it's bet- ter than the winning percentage that Pac-12 opponents have compiled when they've faced Penn State on its home turf. The Nittany Lions have gone 13-4 against Pac-12 foes in regular-season games played on the East Coast. UCLA is the only Pac-12 team to hold a winning road record against PSU, having gone 2-1 in State College. Given that Joe Paterno was a second-year head coach in the most recent of those games, the predictive power of that record is limited, to say the least. We'll start adding to the sample size on Oct. 5 when the Bruins become the first of the Big Ten's four West Coast teams to visit Beaver Stadium. In addressing the conference's new geography, Franklin also noted that its easternmost and westernmost teams are at a natural disadvantage. The distance between Penn State and USC is about 2,600 miles; the distance between Nebraska and USC is about 1,600 miles. "You just can't treat everybody the same," Franklin said. "If you look at us and Rutgers … the travel is very differ- ent for us than it would be for Nebraska. So how are we going to handle that? "Whether it's major-college foot- ball or the NFL, you have to look at the teams traveling west and what their records have been compared to the teams that are traveling east and what their records are like. ... Those are things that, as an athletic depart- ment, we need to look at and make sure we're making the right choices to give our players and our program the best chance to be successful." Franklin didn't elaborate on what those steps might look like, but whether they involve leaving early for games or working with the league's TV partners to ensure that games kick off at a reasonable hour, accommoda- tions will need to be made. Travel may broaden the mind, but it can also slow the feet. The Big Ten and its members need to do what they can to ensure that visiting teams have a chance to give their best effort. ■ Coach James Franklin said Penn State has been working this offseason to develop a plan for the long-distance travel it will need to make as part of a coast-to-coast conference. PHOTO BY SEAN FITZ PSU Continues To Prepare For A Bigger Big Ten VARSITY VIEWS