Matt Rhule believes Nebraska is positioned perfectly after Big Ten expansion

The Big Ten will stretch across the entirety of the United States once the great conference realignment of 2024 ensues.

Adding heavyweight programs like USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon to a now 18-team conference — Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule believes that the Cornhuskers are better positioned than the majority of other teams within the Big Ten geographically.

In a situation such as having a team like Oregon travel nearly 2,900 miles to play Rutgers in any given sport — that’s when Rhule believes Nebraska has the leg up. The Cornhuskers are sitting right in the middle of it all and can get to either coast with a routine two-and-a-half-hour flight.

“As the Big Ten has become the national conference with teams from the east and west coasts, we’re in a pretty good spot geographically where teams are going to have to come here and play in cold temperatures and the wind,” Rhule said. “… I think the impact on teams flying from the west coast to the east coast — and more importantly the east coast flying to the west coast — the research says [jetlag recovery] is a day per timezone.”

Multiple athletes, particularly softball players, on west coast teams that are set to make the jump to the Big Ten have voiced their concern over the inflated travel schedule. Morgan Scott, a fifth-year pitcher at Oregon, made it clear that conference realignment could have an impact on her mental health citing the balance between practice, travel, school and personal life being hard enough as it is.

Her teammate, KK Humphreys, criticized the conference realignment’s blindness regarding how the university presidents overlooked the smaller revenue sports once again.

Luckily for Nebraska, they’re right in the middle of everything. Aside from the incoming teams from the Pac-12, Nebraska is the farthest west out of any Big Ten team. That means their trips to the west coast are shorter than anyone else’s despite there being roughly 1,600 miles between the two schools. Compare that to the over 1,200 miles that the Huskers were already traveling to play Rutgers, the Big Ten’s eastern-most team.

Regardless of travel, the conferences will be sure to figure discuss expanded budgets and other issues that come along with joining a conference that is now spanning the literal length of the United States. Given the fact that the realignment decisions happened overnight, more work is going to have to be put in to ensure these athletes that don’t play football or basketball are taken care of.