It still feels weird to sit here and type “UCLA and Penn State will play in a conference game on Saturday.”
In fact, conference realignment has felt like just another thing you read about on the internet including Moo Deng or those crazy two-story, drive-thru-only Taco Bells. They are real. They exist. But they’re not in my life so to me, they just don’t feel real.
Yet conference realignment is very real and as Penn State takes on UCLA this weekend, I wonder how long it’s going to take for it to feel real.
It doesn’t help that Penn State is a 28-point favorite and will likely be facing UCLA without their starting quarterback Ethan Garbers – who hasn’t exactly had the best season thus far, throwing six picks and three touchdowns.
Plus the Bruins have to wake up for a 9 a.m.-their-body-time football game. So much for Happy Valley Hospitality – even if Fox is the one deciding the schedule. That, rather, feels like something you’d see from an early season non-conference “buy” game schedule.
In some ways, Saturday’s game will also feel like a non-conference game because the last time UCLA made a trip to University Park, Lyndon Johnson was president. Those who were students that attended contest could have grandchildren sitting in the student section this Saturday.
There’s just no history in the modern era of college football between Penn State and UCLA.
Even with their neighbor and upcoming opponent USC plus Oregon and Washington, the only time the inherent east coast bias in me has really thought about them in the Penn State sphere is the bowl clashes that I’ve either watched on YouTube or in person – all of which are non-conference experiences.
And it will probably feel weird when Penn State heads to Los Angeles in a week or so, too.
But why does it matter that UCLA feels like a Big Ten opponent? Or does it even matter at all the new kids on the block fit in?
I’ve been pondering that this week as well. And I think it does.
Of course, the Big Ten doesn’t fetishize its intraconference love the way the SEC does.
I’ve never heard a Big Ten school chant “B-1-G” the way SEC fans like to chant their initials for whatever reason. When Michigan won the national title last season, I didn’t rub it in the face of my Auburn coworker. If anything, I didn’t want to talk about it.
But I enjoy enjoying football and worrying about what the rest of the conference is up to. Locking in on just one conference makes – for me – college football all that more fun. Keeping up with the Joneses is a much easier way to understand things in my realm, and it, in some ways, fuels the intensity and passion that I have for it.
I think I’m just struggling with it because the newcomers bring the total to 18. That’s a lot more uncontrollable of a number for my millennial attention span. If you’ve ever tried to keep up with every NFL team or every NHL team, you know how exhausting that can be. (“Exhausting” used loosely because I’m usually doing that from my couch.)
But I can tell you much more about the Big Ten in a given year than I can the NFL outside of the AFC North bubble, and much like the NHL and NFL, I’ll get caught up to speed with everyone else come postseason time.
College football’s conference expansion prior to this has allowed for mentality, too.
Even Maryland and Rutgers feel a part of the Big Ten now despite the fact those two, particularly the latter, haven’t gotten their football acts together enough to compete at higher levels. I struggle to remember off the top of my head which conference the State University of New Jersey was in prior to joining the Big Ten. Maryland, during basketball season, can still feel like an ACC member, but during football season, the Terps have felt squarely in the Big Ten for longer than they’ve actually been in the Big Ten.
Nebraska has fully assimilated into my brain as a Big Ten team – probably because people my age never really saw the Tom Osbourne years in the Big 8 or 12 or whatever it was called. It’s also probably because for much of their Big Ten years, the Cornhuskers haven’t exactly had a great offense. (Or defense.)
And of course, I have to imagine this is the way Michigan, Michigan State or Ohio State fans felt about Penn State teams and fans back in the 1990s. But at least geography helped smooth that bridge.
Now with four more teams all basically a continent away, it feels like there is an extra barrier that my brain isn’t going to be able to ever unlock.
It was weird even a few weeks ago seeing USC and Michigan play at the Big House while the Trojans sported “B1G” logos on their uniforms on TV. With that game, real life felt much closer to a college football video game than real life itself with conference realignment.
Now on Saturday, Penn State fans, myself included, will get their first true dose of conference realignment in real life and even if the results will go in the conference record column, it will still feel, well, weird.
vs. 
Time: 12 p.m.
TV: Fox
Announcers: Gus Johnnson, Joel Klatt, Jenny Taft
Radio: Penn State Sports Network
Announcers: Steve Jones, Jack Ham, Brian Tripp
If you’ve enjoyed this content, please subscribe to Stuff Somers Says With Steve on YouTube. Or join our newsletter by entering your email below.
