Penn State Sports Magazine
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1 2 S E P T E M B E R 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 F or the first time since the start of the Big Ten era in 1993, the Penn State football team this fall will travel to the West Coast to play one of its nine confer- ence games. On Oct. 12, the Nittany Lions will face USC in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The team will fly 4,495 miles round trip to do so. As Penn State head coach James Frank- lin detailed in an interview with BWI ear- lier this summer, the process of getting from State College to Southern California will involve more than just a couple of transcontinental flights. "For a West Coast trip, we can't fly in both directions out of and into State Col- lege," Franklin said. "So now you com- pound that with having to either fly out of Harrisburg or back into Harrisburg. You're talking about another hour-and- 45-minute bus ride and everything that goes into it. Unpacking the plane, packing the buses, getting here. "So, there's the wear and tear of travel. And it's not just that game, it's how that impacts the next game, from a coach's preparation standpoint, from a player re- covery standpoint. And then, your prac- tice schedule is probably going to change. If you don't get back till 10 [a.m.] Sunday, then Sunday probably becomes your off day and Monday becomes your work day, which is different from how we normally operate. There are a lot of things that fac- tor into it." With Penn State set to play five road games in its 12-game regular-season slate, the extent of that wear and tear has a number. In data compiled by the website Bookies.com, the Nittany Lions are set to travel 8,602 miles through the course of the regular season. In the process, they'll span 10 time zones. Those totals rank sixth- and fifth-most, respectively, in the conference this year. Penn State's longest trips after USC in- clude a Nov. 23 visit to Minnesota (1,664 round-trip miles), an Oct. 26 date with Wisconsin (1,230) and a game at Purdue (952) on Nov. 16. The Big Ten team with the heaviest travel burden this year is UCLA by a wide margin. The Bruins will travel 22,048 miles — 4,526 more than second-place Washington — and cross 26 time zones. Those staggering totals include more than just Big Ten road trips to Penn State, Rutgers, Nebraska and Washington. UCLA also plays nonconference games at Hawai'i (5,127 round-trip miles) and LSU (3,660) Given the demands of the Nittany Li- ons' 2024 schedule, along with future slates that will send them to UCLA (2025), Washington (2026), Oregon (2027), and back to USC (2028), Franklin has concerns about whether the Big Ten's expanded footprint will put the conference at a dis- advantage relative to the rest of the Power Four, especially now that the 12-team playoff is going to extend the season sig- nificantly for a handful of national cham- pionship contenders. "In the SEC, almost all of their games are essentially drivable," Franklin said. "I'm not saying they will drive, but they're drivable. And then ours aren't. There's a wear-and-tear aspect of that. "When you talk about 17 games and wear and tear when [the SEC] may not have that … that has to be factored in. The Big Ten wants us to play some of these other games, like SEC opponents. Well, why should we do that when we play nine conference games and they play eight conference games? They have no travel, and we have a ton of travel? Why would we do that? How does that make sense? "If we all want to play SEC opponents and they want to play Big Ten opponents, fine. They should go to nine games or we should go to eight games. But then we still have to travel." ■ PSU Has Big Ten's Sixth-Highest Travel Burden In 2024 NAT E BAU E R | N AT E . B A U E R @ O N 3 . C O M 2024 BIG TEN MILES TRAVELED* Rk. Team Miles Time Zones 1. UCLA 22,048 26 2. Washington 17,522 22 3. USC 12,711 16 4. Oregon 12,521 16 5. Rutgers 9,278 8 6. Penn State 8,602 10 7. Maryland 8,132 8 8. Minnesota 7,350 8 9. Iowa 6,793 10 10. Michigan State 6,771 8 11. Nebraska 6,659 10 12. Illinois 6,629 6 13. Wisconsin 6,246 6 14. Northwestern 5,696 10 15. Ohio State 5,633 8 16. Michigan 5,194 8 17. Purdue 5,141 10 18. Indiana 4,895 8 * Source: Bookies.com Penn State's visit to USC in October will be its longest road trip of the season and its longest ever for a Big Ten game. The Lions will fly to Los Angeles and back, covering 4,495 round-trip miles. PHOTO COURTESY LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT