The Big Ten’s West Coast additions mean more travel miles for everybody.
247Sports broke down what those 2024 travel miles look like for every team in the Big Ten. In its ranking of Big Ten schools by miles traveled, a pair of items stand out.
It’s no surprise, but the West Coast quartet leads the way. No one will travel more in the Big Ten than UCLA. The Bruins will log a league-leading 22,048 travel miles in 2024.
UCLA has a Week 1 road trip to Hawaii, road trips to LSU and Penn State, a cross-country trek to Rutgers and road tilts at Nebraska and Washington. In all, the Bruins will cross 26 time zones round trip this season.
Washington is next with 17,522 travel miles, USC third-most with 12,710 travel miles and Oregon fourth with 12,520 travel miles.
And then, for Iowa, the Hawkeyes rank right in the middle of the pack. Iowa will log the ninth-most travel miles among Big Ten squads in the 2024 season with 6,793 miles.
Iowa opens the Big Ten slate in 2024 with three of its first four conference matchups on the road, including back-to-back games at Minnesota and Ohio State with a bye week between. Not the most favorable of schedules for the Hawkeyes. But, this is a program that went a combined 20-9 (.689) in true road games the past six seasons.
The two longest road trips on the schedule for Iowa in 2024 both occur in November when it goes to the Rose Bowl to take on UCLA in Week 11. The Hawkeyes get another bye before traveling east to play at Maryland. – Cody Nagel, 247Sports.
Though the Hawkeyes open Big Ten play with three of their first four contests on the road, Iowa also gets to ease into the 2024 season without any travel at all until the Sept. 21 Big Ten opener at Minnesota.
Iowa’s first three games all come at Kinnick. The Hawkeyes open on Aug. 31 versus Illinois State, host Iowa State on Sept. 7 and then close the nonconference schedule against Troy on Sept. 14.
As Nagel notes, it’s certainly favorable that Iowa gets its second bye week sandwiched in between its road trip to Pasadena to take on UCLA and its trip to College Park to take on Maryland.
The Hawkeyes will have a quick turnaround before that UCLA tilt, though. Iowa hosts Wisconsin on Saturday, Nov. 2 and has to turn around, travel to the West Coast and then play the Bruins on Friday, Nov. 8 at 8 p.m. CT.
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