On Thursday, the Big Ten announced a new opponent lineup for the next five seasons, starting with USC’s first year in the conference in 2024.
The update made changes to a schedule previously released in June, which had to be revised in August after Washington and Oregon announced that they would also be joining the Big Ten in 2024 alongside USC and UCLA.
The conference will be composed of a total of 18 schools, who will each play nine interconference games per season. USC will host Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers and Wisconsin at home in 2024 — an almost entirely new schedule compared to the June lineup which featured Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin.
USC’s 2024 away games will now feature conference matchups against Washington, UCLA, Minnesota, Michigan and Maryland — a total expected air travel distance of roughly 14,406 miles for the Trojans who were previously scheduled to play Northwestern, Purdue, UCLA, Maryland and Penn State.
“I honestly felt like from the West Coast piece, I think they did what they needed to do,” USC Head Coach Lincoln Riley said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “The reality is we’re still going to play half of our games and, in most years, a little over half of our games on the West Coast, so I don’t think we’re going to be hurting for it here.”
Balancing travel by distance, region and time zones was a primary consideration for the Big Ten during schedule development, according to the conference’s website. To design the lineup, the Big Ten debuted a new Flex Protect XVIII model, which “features a combination of protected opponents and rotating opponents for universities.”
The protected opponents feature was another main concern for the Big Ten, as the conference struggled to balance historic rivalries with the introduction of new teams into the conference. Officials made the decision to “protect” 12 rivalries, meaning that those matchups will be played every season. UCLA has been designated as USC’s only rival, while Iowa has three and Michigan, Minnesota and Purdue each have two.
Big Ten officials said they examined 262 models before deciding on the newly released schedule, which boasts no repeat matchups in the same location and ensures that every team will play each other at least twice over the five years.
The conference’s next big challenge is setting actual game dates, which are expected to be released later this year.