Big Ten teams went 6-22 when traveling across multiple time zones in 2024 regular season
Michigan Wolverines football certainly had its chances to win, but lost 27-17 at Washington last season. The truth is, the Maize and Blue weren’t the only ones to travel a far distance and suffer a setback.
In fact, 14 of the 18 Big Ten teams in the new-look conference last season crossed multiple time zones for a road game and lost. Conference programs were 6-22 in those situations last regular season.
Only Oregon (3-0; wins over Purdue, Michigan and Wisconsin), Indiana (1-0; win over UCLA), Penn State (1-0; win over USC) and Minnesota (1-0; win over UCLA) won games in those situations. Everyone else went winless — including Washington and UCLA, each at 0-4.
Michigan has had struggles on the West Coast in the regular season going back decades. Michigan has lost five-straight road games against Pac-12 programs or former members of that conference, including last season’s 27-17 setback at Washington.
The Wolverines haven’t won a regular-season road game on the West Coast since 1989, in fact — and that win was a do, with U-M recovering an onside kick before J.D. Carlson booted the game-winning field goal.
The Wolverines will play in Los Angeles against USC in 2025. The Maize and Blue are 1-0 playing at USC, with a 16-6 win in 1957 in the lone meeting in California that wasn’t in the Rose Bowl. Michigan is 5-6 all time against the Trojans and won the last meeting, 27-24, in Ann Arbor in 2024.
Here’s the record of each Big Ten team when traveling across multiple time zones last season:
| Team | Wins | Losses |
| Oregon | 3 | 0 |
| Indiana | 1 | 0 |
| Penn State | 1 | 0 |
| Minnesota | 1 | 0 |
| Ohio State | 0 | 1 |
| Illinois | 0 | 1 |
| Iowa | 0 | 1 |
| Michigan | 0 | 1 |
| USC | 0 | 3 |
| Rutgers | 0 | 1 |
| Washington | 0 | 4 |
| UCLA | 0 | 4 |
| Nebraska | 0 | 1 |
| Michigan State | 0 | 1 |
| Wisconsin | 0 | 1 |
| Northwestern | 0 | 1 |
| Maryland | 0 | 1 |
| Purdue | 0 | 1 |
While it didn’t show for Oregon last year, making a long road trip in the middle of the season poses its challenges not just for that game but over the course of the season. They can add up, especially for the West Coast teams who are now primarily competing against midwest foes.
Top 10
- 1New
Jim Harbaugh sued
Warde Manuel also named in lawsuit
- 2Hot
Top 25
EA Sports CFB 26 rankings
- 3
Big 12 Conference
Ends preseason media poll
- 4Trending
2025 MLB Mock Draft
New No. 1 overall, big shakeup
- 5
NCAA President salary
Charlie Baker salary revealed
Get the On3 Top 10 to your inbox every morning
By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms, and use of my personal information described therein.
Michigan made some schedule adjustments for the game at Washington last season. It kicked off at 4:30 p.m. local time, 7:30 p.m. ET.
“The good thing is that when you go to the West Coast, you gain time,” head coach Sherrone Moore said at the beginning of that week. “So the biggest thing that we’re adjusting and we made is adjustments for Friday when we get there because we’ll get there at five o’clock their time, eight o’clock here.
“We’ll have our same afternoon schedule. But knowing that the guys are gonna sleep on the plane, we’re gonna catch up on sleep. But the next day make sure that they get some time to sleep in and get their body clock right but not too much.
“Usually, we don’t have any meetings or have a meeting, [but] we’ll have a couple things to make sure that they get their bodies going. Get loose, get right and try to organize it as much as we can, like a night game here.”
