Ohio State Football: Big Ten gets lucky

The Ohio State football program will have two new foes in the Big Ten starting next year. Both USC and UCLA will join the conference in 2024 and will be a major part of the conference race moving forward. This year, however, they will stay in the Pac-12 for one final run.

For the rest of the Big Ten, that’s good news. USC barely missed out on the College Football Playoff a year ago. Their misfortune helped the Buckeyes make it instead. But they are still going to be a really good football team that’s led by last year’s Heisman Trophy winner.

USC will be a top-ten preseason team. They might even be top five. UCLA is no slouch either. They finished the season as a top-25 team and won 9 games last year. Although they won’t be as good this year, they’re still better than most of the teams in the Big Ten West.

It’s lucky for most of the Big Ten that these two programs don’t join until next season. USC would definitely figure into the discussion as far as the conference title and would pose a serious threat to both the Ohio State football team and TTUN. UCLA would probably finish in the top five.

As it stands, both programs will still be pretty good moving forward in the Big Ten. Their recruiting reach will only get bigger now that they have a conference footprint from coast-to-coast. We’ll see how the Buckeyes are able to deal with both of these foes in the future.

In the meantime, Ohio State still needs to focus its energy on the upcoming season and how to beat TTUN and get back to winning the conference with some regularity. USC and UCLA can both wait. Even when they join the Big Ten, they still won’t be a top priority for the Buckeyes.