In 2024 and 2025, the Oregon Ducks did well in the Big Ten, but none of the other West Coast schools met expectations. USC, Washington and UCLA all struggled. This year, Washington is still down, but USC, Oregon, and especially UCLA are in the hunt for the College Football Playoff in mid-November.
College football writer and analyst Dan Wetzel pointed out that after November 7's games, the USC-UCLA-Oregon trio is 22-5 overall, 14-4 in Big Ten games. Meanwhile, the Ohio State-Michigan-Penn State trio is a combined 16-11 overall, 8-10 in Big Ten competition.
The widely-accepted view - not unanimous, but noticeably prevalent - among college football pundits was that the long-distance travel from the Pacific time zone to the Central and Eastern time zones
would handicap the West Coast schools in the Big Ten. The view contained a certain amount of logic, and to be perfectly fair, USC has struggled a lot under Lincoln Riley when playing Big Ten road games in the Central and Eastern time zones. However, UCLA and Bob Chesney are unbeaten this year. Oregon just went to Columbus and thrashed Ohio State. The idea that the deck would regularly be stacked against the West Coast Big Ten schools didn't account for the possibility that the Midwestern and Eastern Big Ten schools could fall on hard times, primarily due to bad coaching.
Ohio State is a mess under Ryan Day. Michigan is a disaster under Kyle Whittingham. Penn State is struggling under Matt Campbell.
What commentators thought was a travel and logistics problem is really just a coaching issue. If the West Coast Big Ten schools are better coached than the Midwestern Big Ten schools, the travel and logistics are secondary.
Now let's see if Lincoln Riley can outcoach Curt Cignetti in Bloomington, Indiana, this Saturday.
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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Skeptics of West Coast Big Ten schools have been proved wrong
