UCLA, USC & Penn State, Part 3: It All Boils Down to Football

This is the third of a three-part series on the addition of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten.

Monday — By The Numbers

Wednesday — Head to Head, Past & Future

Today — Football 

The addition of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten Conference, beginning with the 2024 football season, sounds sexy to college football fans. But it could be a bit daunting to their new conference partners.

The arrival of Lincoln Riley at Southern California is both thoughts personified. (Boy, those Franklin-To-USC rumors seem like a long time ago.)

But let’s be clear: For UCLA, when it comes to football, they’re a basketball — and softball — school.

Over the past 33 seasons, UCLA football has had just five double-digit win campaigns, gaining 10 victories in 1997, 1998, 2005, 2013 and 2014.

The last time UCLA made the season-ending Associated Press Top 25 was in 2014, when they were ranked No. 10 with a 10-3 record.

And since arriving in 2018, Chip Kelly has not exactly been the Wizard of Westwood.

The Bruins have been 18-25 on his watch, though they did go 8-4 in 2021. Wins over LSU, Washington and USC (62-33) would normally portend good things ahead. But, all three programs were wounded last season. A 34-31 midseason loss to No. 10 Oregon may have been their best game.

That begs the key questions, though, about UCLA: Will Kelly be a Bruin by the time they hit the Big Ten? And will UCLA be a serious threat to Penn State in football?

Answer No. 1. Doubtful. Kelly needs a big season (or two) if he’s going to be around by the time UCLA meets Penn State. He’s 58 years old — two decades older than crosstown coaching rival Riley — and his tumultuous three years in Philly, a dumpster-fire season with the 49ers and three out of four losing seasons at UCLA are clear indication Chip likely has lost his juice. Which is good for Penn State. UCLA athletic Martin Jarmond will have likely hired a young gun of his own by the time you see L.A. for a UCLA-PSU game.

Answer 2: Maybe. A new coach, a reinvigorated program willing to spend newfound money and a homefield advantage like the Rose Bowl may not portend great things for Penn State. The Nittany Lions are 5-7 in their last dozen games away from Beaver Stadium, and flying across the country for a regular season won’t be an easy road-trip.

A GOLDEN HIRE?

USC? That’s a different story. Entirely.

The Trojans have pulled themselves out of a downward spiral with a coaching change that should have them living the life of Riley by the time they meet Penn State in 2024 or 2025.

And no doubt about it, we will see a marquee Southern California vs. Penn State contest in the Trojans’ first two years in the Big Ten. The networks will demand it. USC vs. PSU — a White Out pairing that renders this year’s Gopher wear-white game almost laughable in comparison — is the kind of big-ratings match-up that 1.) Spurred USC and UCLA to jump from the Pac-12; and 2.) Will garner the Big Ten at least $1.2 billion annually in media rights.

When the Trojans first face Penn State as Big Ten brethren, they will be without their current quarterback, Caleb Williams, the transfer who starred for Riley as a true freshman at Oklahoma in 2021. Williams has two more seasons, then he’ll head to the NFL. Shed no tears for Riley, who has already coached two Heisman Trophy winners (Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray). If his time at Oklahoma, where he also coached (and coaxed to transfer to Norman) NFL starter Jalen Hurts, is any indication, the Trojans will be well-stocked at QB.

Riley could be the difference-maker. Let’s take a look at the best four-game stretches as head coaches by James Franklin (Penn State), Riley (Oklahoma) and Kelly (UCLA, Oregon). Don’t forget that at Oregon, Kelly took the Ducks to the national title game, where they lost to Auburn and Cam Newton, 22-19, on a last-second field goal.

Can Kelly — and Franklin — return to past coaching glory?

ON THE FIELD

Over the past two seasons, Penn State, UCLA and Southern California have been a combined 30-28. Even more shocking, UCLA has the best single-season record of the three over 2020-2021, going 8-4 last season. Here’s a look at the teams’ last six seasons. (The 2016 records include that epic and immensely enjoyable back-and-forth Rose Bowl thriller that USC won, 52-49, on a walk-off field goal.) Take into account that top to bottom, the Big Ten is a tougher conference.

RECORD/AP RANK

THE PLAYOFFS

The two West Coast teams will arrive in time for the last two years of the current College Football Playoff set-up, which features just four teams and expires after the 2025 college football season.

Let’s assume the Power 2 (SEC and Big Ten) can’t expand the playoffs beyond four teams until at least the 2026 season: The presence of USC in 2024 will (further) hurt Penn State’s chances of making the CFP for at least another four seasons, counting 2022.

After that? It’s anyone’s guess. We could see in-conference playoffs run by the Big Ten and SEC, with the conference champs meeting. Or, there may be a national 12- or 16-team playoff (with the SEC and Big Ten each getting their own bracket…at least). At which point, Penn State’s chances of making a revised CFP don’t look too bad.

That’s what Penn State’s recent history tells us, anyway. For a four-year stretch from 2016-2019, if there had been a 12- or 16- team playoff, Penn State would have qualified. In the final CFP regular-season rankings before the playoffs and bowl games for those four years, Penn State was ranked 5^th, 9^th, 12^th and 10^th.

Since the CFP started in 2014, UCLA has made the CFP’s Top 25 rankings heading into bowl season only once — in 2014, when they were No. 14.

Southern California has been in the mix much more frequently, but not recently; here are their pre-bowl CFP rankings: 22^nd (2019), 8^th (2017), 9^th (2016), 25^th (2015) and 24^th (2014).

In the eight years of the CFP, only two Pac-12 teams have made it to the playoffs: Oregon in 2014 (two years after Kelly left for the Eagles) and Washington in 2016. Three Big Ten teams have made the CFP a combined total of six times — all are East division rivals of Penn State: Ohio State (4 times), Michigan (1) and Michigan State (1).

When USC and UCLA arrive in the Big Ten in 2024, it is likely the East-West divisional set-up will be scrapped.

The conference could go to 10 league games at that point, since Penn State at USC certainly will be more attractive to the networks and fans than Penn State vs. Central Michigan. It’s the price you pay for getting paid.

ALREADY A RATINGS SUCCESS

Penn State already gets eyeballs. In an evaluation of the most popular college football teams on television in the 2021 regular season, Zach Miller found that six Big Ten teams were among the Top 12 most-viewed teams, on average. Atop the charts were No. 1 Ohio State (5.2 million average viewers per game), No. 2 Michigan (4.74 million), No. 3 Alabama (4.64 million) and No. 4 Penn State (3.87 million). UCLA (1.18 million) was No. 29 and USC (1.11 million) was No. 32.

So why add those million viewers each of UCLA and USC? It’s actually adding the Los Angeles market (4.8% of the United States), which is almost exactly the same size as the Philadelphia (2.6%) and Washington, D.C. (2.2%) markets combined. All those people in L.A. don’t have to watch the games; their cable provider simply has to include the Big Ten Network in their bundles at a rate jump of almost $1 per household per month. Plus, if you are a sports fan in L.A. wouldn’t you rather watch USC vs. Ohio State than UCLA vs. Colorado?

Time of kickoff (lots of late kicks on the West Coast), quality of competition, nationally vs. regionally broadcast games and a team’s national standing all impact the following rating numbers from 2021, compiled by Sportsmediawatch.com:

VIEWERS in 2021 (millions – Top 5)

RECRUITING

And then there’s the lifeblood of any program — recruiting.

This is Franklin’s forte. But Riley’s, too. (His average class ranked 9^th at Oklahoma.)

It remains to be seen if the arrival of USC and UCLA will impact in any major way the geography of their recruiting footprint, and that of Penn State’s. Based on a review I did last week of their football rosters, as available online at each school’s official website, USC and UCLA heavily recruit their (quite large, mostly warm and talent-rich) home state, while about one-third of Penn State’s roster is from Pennsylvania:

Penn State — 34 of 107 (32%) from Pennsylvania; 11 from Maryland, 7 from Virginia

UCLA — 80 of 125 (64%) from California; 8 each from Texas and Arizona

USC — 55 of 92 (60%) from California; 10 from Texas, 4 from Arizona

Here’s a look at where their schools have ranked in recruiting since 2018, according to On3’s consensus ratings.

UCLA hired Kelly on Nov. 25, 2017, so all the classes below are his. Riley was promoted to head coach at Oklahoma in June 2017 and was hired as USC’s head coach on Nov. 28, 2021. Clay Helton, fired as USC’s head coach in September 2021, was the man behind USC’s 2018-2021 classes. Franklin has been Penn State’s head coach since Jan 11, 2014.