A Move to the B1G Does Not Have to Include Ridiculous Travel

[Jon Joseph]

Charles posted a perfect-pondering point post as to whether Oregon and Washington will receive an invitation to the B1G come late April or May.

 

Matt Hayes, a gentleman who has covered college sports for decades opined a few weeks back that the B1G is not going to leave the LA schools on a west coast island.

 

Many of us on this site have chided the LA schools' move to the B1G as being insensitive toward student-athletes, especially those playing non-revenue sports when it comes to travel covering distances from California to New Jersey and Maryland.

 

I think there is a way in which travel can be mitigated.

 

Oregon and UW joining the B1G would bring the B1G conference to 18 member institutions. A perfect fit for three, six-team pods.

 

WEST - Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, UCLA, USC, Washington.

 

CENTRAL - Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, Wisconsin

 

EAST - Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue, Rutgers.

 

[Penn State plays in the Central Division to balance competition; especially, in football.]

 

Annually, Oregon would play Iowa, Nebraska, UCLA, USC, and UW in football. Out-of-conference (OOC), Oregon would continue to play Oregon State and Washington would play Washington State. 

 

This would leave Oregon with 4 conference games and 2 OOC games. The remaining 2 OOC games could be played against teams on the west coast. 2 of the remaining 4 conference games would be played at Autzen Stadium. If this on occasion required Oregon to travel to the eastern time zone; well, Oregon has been there-done that.

 

Football is the easy part of the travel calculus

 

For other sports, including basketball, the conference schedules could be weighted to play the home and away against pod members, and the rest of the conference schedule creatively filled out. For instance, Baseball could travel to Rutgers along with Penn State and Maryland for a round-robin trio of games. 

 

Same with UW traveling to Chicago for a round-robin of games with Minnesota, Illinois, Northwestern, and Wisconsin. 

 

School work? As a result of what we learned from the Covid crisis, many classes can be taught online.

 

Who (and I am not certain of Who is) knows if an invite will be coming? But should an invite be coming and accepted by Oregon I do not think fear of exaggerated travel need be realized.