EUGENE — One of the main criticisms of conference realignment in college athletics has been the travel demands it places on teams that now play in conferences centered far from where the schools are located. Oregon is one of the teams most affected by this change, as the West Coast powerhouse will play teams primarily from the central United States in 2024 and beyond.
The Big Ten conference expands to 18 total teams in 2024, including Oregon, Washington Huskies, USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins.
The Oregon Ducks will travel an astonishing 15,222 miles in the 2024 football season (including the preseason trip to Oregon State), up from the 9,172 miles traveled in the 2023 regular season. Travel demands in Oregon face an increase of nearly 40 %.
.While flights inevitably cost much more, there is also the cost this entails for the team and players, particularly with regards to frequently changing time zones. While in the Pac-12 Conference, the vast majority of Oregon’s games were played in Pacific or Mountain time, the move to the Big Ten Conference involves many more games being played in the Central and Eastern time zones.
While the Ducks won’t have to travel to the Eastern time zone in 2024 due to schools like Rutgers and Penn State on this year’s schedule, that won’t be the case every year. It is not difficult to imagine how this distance covered could increase even further in the coming years and be an even greater factor in the team’s performance in away games.
It’s important to note that some teams will be worse off than Oregon, like Washington. The Huskies need to fly even further northwest than the Ducks. Additionally, California and Stanford will have even more onerous travel requirements as they transition to the Atlantic Coast Conference, made up almost exclusively of teams in the Eastern time zone.
While programs have more resources than ever to help recover from these grueling trips, we can only imagine the effect this will have on the daily lives of athletes and coaches.
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