USC's cross-country trip to Rutgers revives questions about East Coast struggles - USA Today
No. 11 Southern California opens Big Ten play this week with the conference's longest road trip, traveling across the country to face Rutgers in Piscataway, N.J.
The expanded Big Ten has brought increased travel demands for every member, but no team in the league faces a longer regular-season journey than USC's trek to Rutgers. In fact, the trip is longer than any road game facing the other 24 teams ranked in the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll Top 25.
The Trojans enter as heavy favorites against the Scarlet Knights, but history suggests the matchup isn't a formality. USC has often struggled in games played in the Eastern time zone, adding another layer of intrigue as the Trojans try to stay unbeaten while navigating the challenges of cross-country travel.
USC will travel 2,769 miles to play Rutgers.
It is the longest possible conference trip as it takes roughly five hours to travel from Los Angeles to New Jersey. It is one of the longest distances a team will travel to play this season, as Miami owns that distinction after it traveled more than 3,000 miles to play at Stanford in California in Week 1.
The Rutgers game is a major reason the Trojans will travel an estimated total of 8,144 miles one-way this season from its Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum home based on great circle miles, despite having just five road games, one of which is at crosstown rival UCLA.
The Trojans hope they already broke an East Coast curse that had lingered for more than a decade. USC's road win at Purdue last season was its first victory in the Eastern Time Zone since 2012.
Before that breakthrough, the Trojans had dropped nine consecutive games played in the Eastern Time Zone and are just 1-10 in their past 11 appearances there.
It's a surprising trend for one of college football's blue-blood programs, but cross-country trips have long been a challenge for USC. Since 1990, the Trojans are 14-19 in games played in the Eastern Time Zone.
Part of that record is tied to USC's historic rivalry with Notre Dame. The Trojans have traveled to South Bend every other year, going 6-12 against the Fighting Irish on the road since 1990.
The exception came during the Pete Carroll and Lane Kiffin eras. From 2003 through 2012, USC won nine straight games in the Eastern Time Zone, a stretch that stands in stark contrast to the struggles that followed.
With the long trip ahead, USC is changing its typical travel routine. The Trojans are flying out Thursday, Sept. 17, two days before the game instead of the usual one day prior.
"Felt like that was the right thing to do, just with the length of the travel," said coach Lincoln Riley.
The USC coach added the team has made several changes to its long travel scheduling, learning from experiencing the first few years of the Big Ten and also seeing how other teams, including professional ones, handle it.
"We're actually able to take some of our own experience with it now, and some of the things that we've done that we liked," Riley said. "From Year 1to Year 2, I thought our travel and plan was way better, and honestly, I thought we played quite a bit better and were more prepared. But even with that, there's definitely a few changes that'll be different from last year that we feel like are going to help."
