USC and UCLA in the Big Ten? It’s enough to make your head spin – San Francisco Chronicle

It’s always about the money.

But the parallel runs deeper. Much like Phil Mickelson and his cohorts spewed nonsense about less travel and a streamlined format, USC and UCLA touted the scholarly benefits of their defection to the Big Ten. The first paragraph of USC’s news release referred to the move positioning the school’s “student-athletes for long-term success in both athletics and academics.”

Oh, please. This has nothing to do with academics. Just say it’s about the damn money.

Crazy travel: Division I athletes are really athlete-students, not the other way around. The demands of competition, especially in a Power Five conference, barely leave time for the student part of the equation.

So the looming trips from Los Angeles to New Brunswick, N.J., College Park, Md., and State College, Pa., should really help Trojans and Bruins athletes stay fresh as they try to, say, study.

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The travel demands for L.A. schools in the Big Ten border on comical. The nearest conference opponent (other than each other) is Nebraska, about 1,300 air miles away. Rutgers is more than 2,400 miles away, or nearly the same distance as Rutgers to Iceland.

This makes no sense whatsoever.

Then there’s the contrast in climates, another illogical layer of this whole thing. Wall Street Journal sports columnist Jason Gay, a Wisconsin alum, wrote a hilarious piece highlighting the prospect of USC and UCLA teams traveling to the Midwest in winter — essentially anytime from mid-September through mid-May.

“I look forward to seeing their sun-tanned faces,” Gay wrote, “when they step off the plane in Madison and feel a blast of minus 11 howling off the isthmus. It will make a night game in Pullman seem like Bora Bora.”

I texted this excerpt to my son, a recent Wisconsin graduate. His response: “He’s not wrong about the minus 11.”

More maneuvering: These ridiculous travel logistics, in a twisted way, make it sensible for the Big Ten to expand again — and add at least two more West Coast schools, to give USC and UCLA some manageable trips.

Oregon and Washington probably are the strongest candidates, given their sizable athletic budgets and national ambitions. John Canzano, a respected and well-connected columnist in Portland, called the Ducks and Huskies “the two most attractive programs left to the Big Ten.”

So this puts Cal and Stanford in a tough predicament.

The Bay Area schools are attractive academically to the Big Ten, and because they reside in the nation’s sixth-biggest media market. But college football generates tepid television ratings on the West Coast, particularly in the pro-sports-driven Bay Area, so that could leave Cal and Stanford without an appealing home.

They might not want to make such an audacious move to the Big Ten, except they know the Pac-12 could implode without USC and UCLA. Oregon and Washington probably would bolt if given the chance; the Arizona schools and Utah/Colorado might pre-emptively jump ship to the Big 12. The Pac-12 could shrink to the Pac-4 before long.

Plus, in Cal’s case, there’s the heavy burden of Memorial Stadium debt. Yep, it’s always about the money. If the Big Ten wants the Bears — a huge, complicated, improbable “if” — it will be difficult for them to resist.

Ivy-like path: Then there’s the opposite possibility, which occasionally surfaces in conversations with fellow Cal alums. What if Cal and Stanford, fed up with the financially fueled arms race in college athletics, decided to de-emphasize sports and follow an Ivy League model?

It’s a long shot, especially for Cal (see Memorial Stadium debt). It would be sad, given the rich athletic history at both schools, particularly in non-revenue sports. It would be bold, absolutely.

But there’s also a refreshing element to our local schools scanning the landscape of Power Five greed and self-interest and declaring, “Enough.” This would be a tough sell to alums accustomed to high-level sports programs, and a challenging endeavor to find the right schools to form “Ivy League West.”

Still, an intriguing thought.

West Coast recruits:
Thursday’s news was hard to comprehend, on many levels, for longtime Pac-12 fans; it felt like an April Fool’s joke on June 30. So imagine what it was like for West Coast recruits eyeing USC or UCLA.

Yes, the move to the Big Ten propels the L.A. schools onto a bigger stage — more national television exposure, more NIL (name-image-likeness) opportunities for select athletes. But say you’re a Bay Area kid wanting to stay on the West Coast, to compete at a high level (in any sport) with regular trips home to face Cal and Stanford. And short trips to other conference schools.

USC and UCLA probably once seemed like the gold standard in many ways. Now it’s all so … confusing.

Adios, ’SC:
Pardon the closing rant, but one of my enduring reactions to all this: Wow, another reason to loathe USC.

The history runs deep, admittedly. Cal students, at least in the 1980s, were taught USC stood for private-school privilege, entitlement, arrogance (more recent example: Varsity Blues scandal). The Trojans usually thrashed the Bears on the football field, but at least our band knew more than one stupid song.

So it was not at all surprising to hear USC was the impetus behind the Big Ten move. UCLA came along for the ride. USC always acted like it was too good for the Pac-12, anyway, and now there’s fresh evidence.

Good riddance.

Ron Kroichick is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rkroichick@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ronkroichick