Life in the new and expanded Big Ten Conference presents travel and logistical problems for USC and the other West Coast Big Ten schools. However, in this 2026 season, USC football won't be hit hard by travel complications.
USC plays seven home games in 2026 plus UCLA in Pasadena, a non-travel game. That's eight games for which USC gets to stay home this season. The Trojans make four true road trips outside Los Angeles and the Pacific time zone. One is Rutgers on September 19. The next is Penn State on October 10. The next is Wisconsin on October 24. The last one is Indiana on November 14.
You can arrive at some obvious conclusions here. You can see that USC doesn't have any two-game road trips. Only one sequence has road trips two weeks apart. Also, the Penn State road trip is followed by a week off. USC isn't playing on October 17 after going to Happy Valley on October 10. Then, USC's October 17 off week flows into the road trip to Wisconsin. That's two road trips sandwiching a week off, which will reduce a lot of stress on the team. Then, the Indiana game on November 14 follows an off week on November 7. This really is a low-strain, low-complication road game and travel schedule for USC in the Big Ten.
The games themselves might be tough, but the travel layout will not be - not in 2026, at least.
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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USC season preview: 2026 Big Ten football travel schedule is kind
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