The Big Ten Conference Expansion taking place in 2024 will see four former west coast PAC-12 teams named USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington join the primarily midwest based Big Ten Conference. The collapse of the PAC-12 conference and its schools being absorbed into other conferences has sent shock waves throughout the college football landscape. Now that the smoke has cleared, Big Ten fans are beginning to wonder how the conference expansion will affect their favorite team.
Rutgers football is scheduled to play three out of the four new teams this year, welcoming both Washington and UCLA to the banks of the raritan and traveling to play USC in Los Angeles. Does the addition of these schools to the scheduling rotation help or hurt Rutgers football.
Conference expansion: Positives
There are some positives that come with the conference expansion and the biggest is the Big Tens abolition of their division based schedule in an attempt to accommodate the new teams coming in. The addition of the four new teams would have put a big strain on the Big Tens division based scheduling model so abolishing it was the easiest way to fix it.
This is a huge break for Rutgers as they no longer face the guarantee that they will have to play the big three of the conference year in and year out. (Penn State, Michigan, Ohio State) It also means that they will have a better chance to mix in teams from the softer Big Ten West setting up a chance for a more favorable schedule.
A couple other slight benefits that Rutgers will have has to do with its home games versus those west coast opponents. First of all, there is less of a chance that the opposing fans will have a strong showing at SHI stadium. This has not been so much an issue recently as it had been in the late 2010s. Second of all, those west coast schools will have to travel across the country while still being students and attending classes. This is a tall order for any athlete much less a student-athlete and might cause them difficulty in bringing their A-game when they have to play on the banks.
Conference expansion: Negatives
The first issue off conference expansion has to do with the teams the Big Ten brought in. They grabbed USC- a team that is offense considered a college football powerhouse and is just one good season away from becoming that again. Oregon finished last year as a strong team, number No.6 in the AP poll to be exact, and does not look like they will fall off dramatically this year. Washington is a team that can make some noise and has done so in the CFP era.
The closest comparison to Rutgers in terms of football history is UCLA and that’s just one out of the four. Rutgers would have benefited a lot more if the Big Ten brought in more schools around their status instead of these ticking-powerhouse- time bombs. If these teams all get good around the same time the Big Ten could become an absolute warzone which would be a disaster for Rutgers if they haven’t found a way to compete in the conference year in and year out by then.
Also when considering the benefits that Rutgers gets when these west coast teams travel to them, you have to think that when Rutgers goes west these teams will get the same benefits. Rutgers has to play a game versus USC next season at 11 p.m. eastern standard time. The sleep issues and the unusualness of the whole situation for the Knights prove a daunting task all in itself then you factor in who they have to play and the circumstances look less then beneficial for the Knights.
Only time will tell how the Knights will fair in this post Big Ten Conference expansion world.
