When the USC Trojans made the move (pun intended) to the Big Ten, one of the significant changes that was anticipated was the increased travel the team would endure and the frequent changes in time zones on a weekly basis.
They have already traveled to the East Coast time zone once and hosted an EST team last weekend. They will travel to the central time zone this week as they play Illinois at 9:00 AM PT.
One organizational detail that drove fans crazy last year was the travel schedule of the USC Trojans. Prior to the season kicking off, head coach Lincoln Riley said that they had consulted with NFL teams, including the local Rams and Chargers, about when they would depart for road games, especially ones on the East Coast.
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NFL teams typically travel the day before. So for a Sunday game, the team will travel on Saturday. The Trojans adopted this schedule last year and made their travel day Friday.
USC was brutal on the road last year, losing every game out of the confines of LA (they beat UCLA at the Rose Bowl). There were a number of factors that contributed to this, but many people added the late travel schedule to that list.
Would The USC Trojans Change Their Travel Schedule In 2025?
Ahead of this season kicking off, Riley stated that the program had made some travel changes and improvements, but primarily alluded to flying on bigger planes and different sleeping habits.
For the Purdue game, the team still left the day before, on Friday. However, this was a 3:30 PM local time kick, so leaving the day before did not seem out of the ordinary.
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This week’s game, however, is an 11:00 AM local time kick, or 9:00 AM PT. Would Lincoln Riley change things up?
He sure did.
The team will head to the airport and fly out on Thursday in the early afternoon, and should arrive in Champaign in the early evening, giving them an entire day on Friday to acclimate and get a good night’s rest ahead of the early kick-off.
USC will travel to Illinois this afternoon on a 12:15pm scheduled flight from LAX for their game on Saturday morning ✌🏻#FightOn✌🏻 pic.twitter.com/wHqeh7OLWN
— Arrogant Nation✌🏻 (@FightOnRusty) September 25, 2025
We will see what kind of immediate effect this will have on the game this Saturday, and the kind of lasting effect it will have on travel plans for the remainder of the season.
On the surface, fans will be relieved and ecstatic to see this change implemented.