The release of the 2024 and 2025 Big Ten football schedules has created so many different conversations about the balance of power in the conference when USC and UCLA join next year.
We have discussed USC’s specific schedule on many different levels and from various vantage points, but we haven’t spent all that much time talking about the Trojans’ Big Ten travel partner, the UCLA Bruins.
Did the Bruins benefit from the way the Big Ten structured its football schedule, or did the Bruins suffer?
Keep in mind that the Big Ten has previously used a divisional format. The Big Ten West has been noticeably weaker than the Big Ten East. Big Ten West teams didn’t have to play Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State — the beasts of the East — on a relentless, annual basis. Their annual opponents were Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota, Northwestern, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. That’s a much better scheduling arrangement than what Big Ten East teams had to deal with.
UCLA, therefore, would have really benefited from a divisional structure, but the Big Ten is getting rid of that very structure when the Bruins and Trojans enter. UCLA will have to play Ohio State and Michigan as often as Illinois and Purdue.
USC is built to withstand that rigor and degree of difficulty. UCLA is not.
We discussed this with Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football.
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