How USC must demand something specific of the Big Ten

The fact that USC moved to the Big Ten was and is suprising enough. The fact that USC is moving to the Big Ten in all sports (except beach volleyball) is an even bigger shock. We’re really going to ask swimmers and golfers and water polo players to travel to and from Big Ten locations?

It’s a massive lift, and it will demand significant changes in Big Ten scheduling frameworks. If the SEC expands to far-reaching geographical areas to accommodate a 20- or 24-team mega-conference, it will have to adjust its scheduling practices as well.

We offered a first line of thought about scheduling a few days ago, when the news of the Big Ten move was especially fresh:

Now let’s take the conversation a step further and get into more precise details.

If USC needs to make a very specific demand of the Big Ten — something much more granular than the larger reality of needing to spend multiple weeks on the road instead of zig-zagging to and from Los Angeles — here is where the Trojans and Mike Bohn must start:

They need to make sure that “body-clock” start times are not attached to the first game of a long Big Ten road trip.

Remember body clocks? We have seen West Coast teams play those 11 a.m. local time games in Big Ten country — remember Stanford football stumbling to a loss at Northwestern several years ago? — and fall flat on their face.

Very simply, if USC is going to spend two or three consecutive weeks on the road (East Lansing one week, Ann Arbor the next, Madison the one after that, etc.), the first game in a multi-week sequence cannot be a noon Eastern kickoff. Only the second or third games can be nooners, 9 a.m. in the West. This gives USC (also UCLA) a chance to adjust the body clocks of its athletes.

If any smaller sport similarly sends USC on an extended Big Ten road trip, the first game or games of that trip cannot be early games.

This is how USC must plan ahead and make sure it doesn’t put its athletes in disadvantageous positions.