Caleb Williams #13 of the USC Trojans looks to pass under pressure from Keanu Williams #99 of the UCLA Bruins during the first half of a game against the UCLA Bruins at United Airlines Field at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on November 18, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images) Congratulations, Los Angeles residents! You are now in Big Ten country.
Back in the summer of 2022 when the cataclysmic conference realignment was announced, The Journal ran a story on how USC and UCLA are joining the most Jewish Collegiate Athletic Conference.
A year ago this week, the Big Ten added two more Pac-12 exiles, the University of Oregon and the University of Washington.
I haven’t lived in Big Ten country in 17 years, but I spent 22 years living in it. So here’s a little dossier on what Big Ten country means to our readers in Los Angeles.
What is the Big Ten Conference?
The Big Ten athletic conference is composed of almost exclusively schools in the Midwest. The conference was founded in 1896 as the Western Conference with charter members Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin and Michigan. The University of Chicago gave up their spot to Michigan State after World War II. From 1950-1990, the conference had exactly ten teams, until Penn State joined in 1990. The University of Nebraska joined in 2011, followed by Rutgers and Maryland in 2014. The conference moniker remained Big Ten even after they expanded from 11, to 12 to 14 teams. With the addition of UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington, there are 18 teams in the Big Ten, and the name shall remain.
Whatever happened to the Pac-12 conference?
It gets a little messy here. The Pac-12 conference was originally founded as the Pacific Coast Conference in 1915 — USC would join in 1922 and UCLA in 1928. The conference would undergo name changes throughout the next 100 years, but only expanded twice, adding Arizona and Arizona State in 1978, and Colorado and Utah in 2011.
University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Colorado University, and the University of Utah all exited the Pac-12, but became members of the Big 12 Conference. Colorado was previously a member of the Big 12 from 1996-2011.
Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley were both poached by the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), where they’ll begin play this fall. All of their ACC opponents are in the Eastern Time Zone, except for their nearest conference opponent, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, still two hours ahead of Pacific time. The Big 12 currently has 16 teams.
That leaves the Oregon State Beavers and Washington State Cougars as the only remaining Pac-12 members. For scheduling “conference” opponents for football, both the Beavers and Cougars will play teams in the Mountain West Conference. For now, the Pac-12 (or Pac-2) is in a strange limbo state, but could return with new members in 2026.
How will the greater distance between schools impact student athletes and fans?
This football season, the UCLA Bruins will travel 22,048 miles for their games. The Washington Huskies will travel 17,522 miles, and the USC Trojans will travel 12,710 miles. Compare that with the Indiana Hoosiers, who will only travel 4,895 miles for their road games this fall.
Besides playing each other, UCLA and USC’s nearest conference rival will be in Eugene, Oregon — over 700 miles north. For contests against the Washington Huskies, Seattle is just under 1,000 miles one way. The next closest Big Ten team to UCLA and USC is Nebraska, about 1,300 miles to the east.
Unless they play in the big money-maker sports of football and basketball, most collegiate sports teams travel on commercial flights.
Back in 2022, The Wall Street Journal wrote that “even with the most creative scheduling models, there is no way around the reality that Trojans and Bruins athletes are about to be spending a lot more time on the road when the schools join the Big Ten.” The article opens with a story about a UCLA golfer taking a blue book college exam on Scandinavian Literature while seated between an elderly couple on a flight back from a competition in Hawaii.
Eliah Drinkwitz, head coach of the University of Missouri Tigers football team, had some heated words when he found out that his team’s road trips got longer — with trips to Colorado, Utah and Arizona now slated to be an annual occurrence.
“My question is: Did we count the cost?” Drinkwitz asked the Kansas City Star in August 2023. “I’m not talking about the financial cost. I’m talking about: Did we count the cost for the student-athletes involved in this decision? What cost is it to those student-athletes? We’re talking about a football decision, based on football, but what about softball and baseball, who have to travel across (the) country? Did we ask about the cost to them? Do we know what the number one indicator or symptom of or cause of mental health (problems) is? It’s lack of rest and sleep. Traveling in those baseball (and) softball games, those people, they travel commercial. They get done playing … they gotta go to the airport. They come back, it’s 3 or 4 in the morning, they got to go to class. I mean, did we ask any of them?”
Defensive tackle Casey Rogers, who played for Oregon before being drafted by the New York Giants, , is optimistic about the big change.
“The cathedrals of college football are in the Big Ten,” Rogers told OregonLive. “A lot of the historic, traditional football teams and stadiums that will be really cool for Oregon to play in. As a fan aspect, a lot of times the Big Ten their stadiums are 100,000 to 90,000, 85,000 people. It’s always fun to go into a big stadium like that and be a part of a big conference like that will be really exciting.
Penn State’s student blog, Onward State, said that “Less than 2% of Division I student-athletes will turn professional after their collegiate careers. Take football out of the equation, and that number certainly plummets, especially at Penn State. That’s why conference expansion is so dangerous. Penn State is asking its many student-athletes to place priority on traveling extreme distances for a conference matchup.”
UCLA defensive lineman Jay Toia told The Daily Bruin that doesn’t see a problem with the greater distance for collegiate games.
“You look at an NFL schedule — they’re doing way more,” Toia said. “That’s what we’re trying to do – is get ready for the next level.”
Why did this happen?
This all happened because of television money. Ten years ago, the Big Ten annexed Rutgers for the New York television market and Maryland for the Washington, D.C. television market. Both schools left behind their own longtime conference rivals and closer road trips for the almighty dollar. The same is happening here. The old rule in the Big Ten is that a new school could only join if it was in a state that shares a state line with an existing Big Ten state. With the addition of California in 2022, that rule is gone. The schools foresee more profit from the television money than loss in both time and money from extended travel.
So get used to seeing these distorted Big Ten maps commercials during your teams’ television broadcasts.
Why does this feel so strange?
I hear you. On August 1, 2024, I went to sleep in Los Angeles. When I woke up on August 2, I was still in Los Angeles, but I woke up as a resident of Big Ten Country for the first time since the day I graduated from the University of Wisconsin. For recovering college sports nuts like me, it’s a strange feeling.
Sure it’ll be nice that my alma mater, the Wisconsin Badgers, will be playing in Los Angeles on an annual basis. But the addition of Los Angeles to Big Ten country does water-down the allure and specialness of my midwestern team making a trip to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl in the dead of winter. Or the basketball team playing in an NCAA Tournament Regional at the Lakers’ home arena.
As someone who lives in the Wisconsin diaspora, it will be nice to have more frequent visits from friends and family. After all, I do give a pretty solid tour of Los Angeles.
In the end, this conference realignment for the vast majority of us will be not much more jarring than an iOS software update — strange, different, logically unnecessary but good for business for a few at the top of the supply chain. There will no doubt be many more people making their maiden voyage to the west coast as they follow their favorite teams on the road. It’ll be good for the town. And expect to see me rooting for the Trojans and Bruins any time that there’s an influx of Ohioans in scarlet singing “Hang on Sloopy” or gaggles of maize-wearing fellas shouting “Go Blue” ad nauseam.
Los Angeles: welcome to BIG TEN COUNTRY pic.twitter.com/d3KytTFqGy
— Brian Fishbach (@BrianFishbach) August 3, 2024
How many Jewish students are there in the Big Ten Conference?
Even before the addition of UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington, the Big Ten Conference had the most Jewish students of all collegiate athletic conferences. The numbers below are based on Hillel College Guide Magazine from October 2023.
The list of notable Jewish alumni is not exhaustive. If I left a notable Jewish alum out from the list on your alma mater, drop me an angry email.
Until then, here’s the list of Big Ten schools ranked by total number of Jewish students.
1. Rutgers University Scarlet Knights
Jewish students: 7,400
Total students: 50,383
City: Piscataway, New Jersey
Notable Jewish alumni: Economist Milton Friedman, former NBA Commissioner David Stern, computer scientist Judea Pearl, fashion designer Marc Ecko.
2. University of Maryland Terrapins
Jewish Students: 6,600
Total students: 40,718
City: College Park, Maryland
Notable Jewish alumni: Larry David, Sergey Brin, Bonnie Bernstein, Carl Bernstein, astronaut Judith Resnik.
3. University of Michigan Wolverines
Jewish students: 6,500
Total students: 50,978
City: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Notable Jewish alumni: Playwright Arthur Miller, actress Gilda Radner, music producer Don Was, actress Selma Blair, comedians Randy and Jason Sklar.
4. University of Wisconsin Badgers
Jewish students: 5,000
Total students: 47,840
City: Madison, Wisconsin
Notable Jewish alumni: Director David Zucker, Director Jerry Zucker, author Saul Bellow, former U.S. Senator Herb Kohl, former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, author Robert Greene, journalist Rita Braver.
5. Pennsylvania State University Nittany Lions
Jewish students: 5,000
Total students: 47,246
City: State College, Pennsylvania
Notable Jewish alumni: Radio personality Benjy Bronk
6. Indiana University Hoosiers
Jewish students: 5,000
Total students: 46,746
City: Bloomington, Indiana
Notable Jewish alumni: Olympic swimmer Marc Spitz, entrepreneur and former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
7. University of Illinois Fighting Illini
Jewish students: 4,250
Total students: 54,101
City: Champaign, Illinois
Notable Jewish Illinois alumni: Architect Max Abramovitz, Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff, author Suze Orman, poet and author Shel Silverstein, musician Allan Sherman,
8. University of Southern California Trojans
Jewish students: 4,000
Total students: 48,751
City: Los Angeles, California
Notable Jewish alumni: Director Judd Apatow, director Jason Reitman, physician and radio host Dr. Drew Pinsky, comedian Mort Sahl, composer James Horner, writer Art Buchwald, author Joseph Heller, architect Sidney Eisenshtat, Second Gentleman of the United States Doug Emhoff.
9. Michigan State University Spartans
Jewish students: 3,200
Total students: 49,843
City: East Lansing, Michigan
Notable Jewish alumni: actor James Caan, director Sam Raimi.
10. The Ohio State University Buckeyes
Jewish students: 3,127
Total students: 59,557
City: Columbus, Ohio
Notable Jewish Ohio State alumni: Author R.L. Stine, U.S. Rep. Ron Kline
11. UCLA Bruins
Jewish students: 3,000
Total students: 47,781
City: Los Angeles, California
Notable Jewish alumni: Actress Mayim Bialik, actor Jack Black, politician Zev Yaroslavsky, U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, commentator Ben Shapiro, Judea Pearl.
12. University of Washington Huskies
Jewish students: 2,500
Total students: 47,789
City: Seattle, Washington
Notable Jewish alumni: Costco co-founder Jeffrey Brotman, musician Kenny G.
13. University of Oregon Ducks
Jewish students: 2,400
Total students: 23,041
City: Eugene, Oregon
Notable Jewish alumni: Portland Trailblazers founder Harry Glickman, former NFL player Geoff Schwartz
14. Northwestern University Wildcats
Total students: 22,732
Jewish students: 2,200
City: Evanston, Illinois
Notable Jewish alumni: Actor Zach Braff, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, comedian Seth Meyers, actor Richard Kline, actor David Schwimmer, talk show host Jerry Springer, actor Richard Kind.
15. University of Minnesota Golden Gophers
Jewish students: 1,450
Total students: 46,267
City: Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota
Notable Jewish alumni: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, actor Ron Perlman.
16. University of Iowa Hawkeyes
Jewish students: 750
Total students: 29,587
City: Iowa City, Iowa
Notable Jewish alumni: U.S. Senator Norm Coleman, comedian Tom Arnold, actor Gene Wilder.
17. Purdue University Boilermakers
Jewish students: 1,075
Total students: 50,731
City: West Lafayette, Indiana
Notable Jewish alumni: Astronaut Mark Polansky.
18. University of Nebraska Cornhuskers
Jewish students: 75
Total students: 25,390
City: Lincoln, Nebraska
Notable Jewish Nebraska alumni: former U.S. Senator Edward Zorinsky.
On behalf of all of us Midwest yokels, I sincerely wish you an official deep-fried, beer-battered Big Ten welcome to all you Trojans and Bruins in this city I love so much.
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