Lincoln Riley downplays travel stress of first Big Ten season
One of the major discussion points regarding now-sprawling Big Ten Conference is how much the increased travel might impact the lives and performances of the student-athletes. It wouldn’t do USC head coach Lincoln Riley much good at this point to whine about the schedule he team will play this fall, but he truly appears to not see a hurdle in the way of travel with a schedule that includes road trips to Michigan, Minnesota and Maryland.
Riley joined ESPN’s Mike Greenberg on Get Up to discuss the perceived travel burden.
Greenberg set up the question alongside a graphic that showed USC will travel 13,965 miles to play football games this season. That’s still fewer than Washington (16,575) and UCLA (22,062 — including a trip to Hawaii). And all three are significantly more than what Indiana will log, which is just 4,898 miles.
“Good thing we’re not traveling by horseback,” Riley said. “We’re gonna be okay.”
Riley said USC spent time with the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers to discuss how they handle multiple longer road trips. He said the team will play to leave earlier on Friday for some of the trips, and they will be the beneficiaries of hours gained on the return flight home.
“It’s part of it,” Riley said. “We’re going to have to do it a couple of times a year. There’s going to be teams on the east coast that are going to come to us a couple of times a year. That’s just part of how this is going to work.”
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Riley touted the fact that the Big Ten is “very much going to be a national conference” with all the big matchups that come with that.
“A couple more hours on the plan, in my opinion, is probably not that big a deal,” he said. “To me, it’s more about the matchups and getting ready to play each and every Saturday. Because you’re going to have to bring it in this conference.”
