Why Ohio State and USC not playing in 2024 Big Ten football schedule makes zero sense

A billion dollars a year, and you can’t pair Ohio State and USC on an annual basis?

What are we doing?

The Big Ten threw all geographical sense out the window last summer by poaching a pair of Los Angeles-based schools from the Pac-12 to join the Midwest-based Big Ten. Why? Because it would add value to the next media rights deal.

And value was added. The deal was announced at $7 billion over 7 years with television partners Fox, CBS and NBC.

But when it came time to reshuffle the schedule and add USC and UCLA to the mix, the Big Ten passed on the opportunity to make USC and Ohio State an annual game. Mostly, I”m guessing, because Ohio State is too scared to play Michigan and USC every year. And USC is too scared to play Ohio State and Notre Dame every year.

BENDER: USC, UCLA must earn rivalries with Ohio State, Michigan

When someone pays you a lot of money, you need to give them something in return. In this case, an insane amount of money requires the best possible matchups you can drum up as often as possible. USC is the class of the Big Ten West Coast. Ohio State is the class of the Original Big Ten (14). Play. Them. Every. Year.

That is pretty much a guaranteed 10-million viewer game every fall, which is a number only Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Texas, Notre Dame-Ohio State, Alabama-Tennessee and Georgia-Tennessee reached in the regular season last year.

You want to win the weekend on a random Saturday in October? Pair up USC and Ohio State and the Big Ten will get all the talk that week.

BENDER: Why more Big Ten night games will benefit the conference

Sure, USC will be playing Penn State and Michigan in 2024, and those are fine games. But you are passing on the ‘A+’, talk-of-the-summer matchup that would have made the total disruption of regional conferences as we know it somewhat more palatable for college football fans.

The Big Ten can puff its chest out all it wants when it comes to playing nine conference games with the SEC stuck on eight (for now). But with a chance to have a new, fresh, home run matchup on an annual basis, the old Legends and Leaders whiffed.