The University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University football programs will play their first season as members of the ACC in 2024, and the schedules are out. They are going to travel, a lot.
In case you are not aware, Cal and Stanford are located on the Pacific coast. The ACC is the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Every team in the ACC, prior to the most recent college football conference expansion, was located no further west than Louisville, Kentucky and South Bend, Indiana. That is no longer the case.
SMU and the two former Pac-12 programs in northwest California joined during the offseason. Texas isn’t that far west compared to the other 14 programs. The same cannot be said for Palo Alto and Berkeley.
Prior to expansion, the furthest distance between two teams — Boston College and Miami — was 1,256 miles. It is more than double that amount after expansion.
The Cardinal and Golden Bears are set to travel a lot in their new conference. Their 2024 schedules have been released and they involve a significant amount of miles.
Cal-Berkeley Golden Bears football’s 2024 travel schedule:
- Auburn — 2,093 miles
- Wake Forest — 2,303 miles
- Pittsburgh — 2,250 miles
- Florida State — 2,215 miles
- SMU — 1,473 miles
Cal is set to travel 10,334 miles for away games next season.
Stanford Cardinal football’s 2024 travel schedule:
- Notre Dame — 1,919 miles
- Cal — 30 miles
- Clemson — 2,187 miles
- N.C. State — 2,393 miles
- Syracuse — 2,425 miles
Stanford is set to travel 8,954 miles for away games next season.
Cal and Stanford both have each other, and SMU as permanent opponents. Playing each other every year will be a huge help in minimizing travel. As will the trip to Dallas every other year, which is now their closest opponent in terms of geographical location.
This is not the worst travel schedule in history. Hawaii in particular travels insane amounts every fall.
Still, traveling 9,000+ miles every year is a grind! It is certainly not what the athletes signed up for when they committed to either program.