As a USF fan, I remember all of the debate that went on when we were first invited to the Big East that centered around travel. Specifically, I remember hearing about how USF was not going to make it in the Big East because of the great distances and travel costs. In fact, that was cited as one of the main reasons Miami wanted to look at the ACC. At the time, I pointed out that it was a stupid argument, and pointed further to the fact that USF could (in theory) fly commercial non-stop flights to get near just about every Big East school (football OR basketball) except Syracuse.

I've also seen many posters from Conference USA schools that have knocked USF, saying that they prefer being in a Southern, geographically sensible conference where they won't have far to drive to their games.

Fast forward a few years, and Rivals did an analysis of the travels for all FBS football teams:

http://collegefootball.rivals.com/conten...CID=839384

A quick look at the list shows some VERY interesting trends...

From a USF perspective, it's noteworthy that the only FBS schools in Florida who will travel less than USF are Fl*rida and FSU. Since many UCF fans were among those who knocked USF to the Big East because of the distances we'd need to go for games, it's satisfying to point out that UCF will be travelling nearly twice as far as USF this season.

Maybe more interesting is a look at the fact that all three of the schools that went to the ACC from the Big East will now be doing more travelling than ANY Big East team. Miami ranks #21, BC #29 and Virginia Tech #41, while USF is the highest Big East team at #42.

Since the Pac-10 is usually held up as one of the most geographically sensible conferences, it should be pointed out that nine of the Pac-10 teams all travel more than any Big East team.

The purpose of this wasn't to somehow talk smack about how USF travels less than Virginia Tech. It's to (hopefully) put to bed the incorrect notion that travel (distances as well as costs) is going to hurt the Big East.

USFFan

this is of course only drivable miles, no games to hawaii included

It tells you that the ACC is setup to keep the North Carolina schools close to home with an easy schedule. It's a typical southern wannabe attitude. And that attitude is exactly why the ACC can't compete.

Would love to see what the mileage that includes all sports looks like for schools

Jackson

If you already had looked up the previous information, carrying it a bit further wouldn't present much problem. However, for anyone starting out, it would take a good bit of time to look up every school's zip code. But once you had that, setting up a spreadsheet to do all the calculations would be a snap. The hard part is looking up, and entering all the data. After that, make one usable lookup table if-function, and copy it to the entire sheet.

Have a lookup cell or two at the top, and you could look up any school, or compare any 2.

bitcruncher Wrote:If you already had looked up the previous information, carrying it a bit further wouldn't present much problem. However, for anyone starting out, it would take a good bit of time to look up every school's zip code. But once you had that, setting up a spreadsheet to do all the calculations would be a snap. The hard part is looking up, and entering all the data. After that, make one usable lookup table if-function, and copy it to the entire sheet.

Have a lookup cell or two at the top, and you could look up any school, or compare any 2.

Thats too much work bit. I'd rather have someone do it for me.

But ah I don't know. Most of the conferences seem geographically compatidable anyways with the exeption of PSU in the Big 10, BC in the ACC and USF in the Big East. But they are what they are so lets move on.

Same here. I was just telling how they should go about it, if they didn't know already...