ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Not only has Michigan football historically not done well when its had to travel to play away games on the West Coast, the Big Ten has struggled with cross-country travel since adding USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington to the conference. Entering 2025, teams were 5-14 when crossing either from the Eastern time zone to Pacific or vice versa, and while there’s been more success this year (Washington at Maryland this weekend), there’s always the cautionary tale (Penn State at UCLA).

Thus, the Wolverines are changing up their travel plans to help get the players more acclimated.

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The maize and blue usually travel on the Friday before a game, and that was the case last year for the Wolverines’ trip to Seattle last year. The Wolverines lost that game, but with the feeling that more is on the line with this weekend’s trip to USC, Sherrone Moore says that the team will depart for Los Angeles on Thursday. With that, Jim Harbaugh and the Los Angeles Chargers are letting Michigan practice at the NFL team’s facility, The Bolt, on Friday.

“Yeah, we’re going to leave Thursday,” Moore said. “Last year, the West Coast trip to Washington, we felt a little groggy, a little slow start. The guys played well, but felt like it just needed a little time to talk to a lot of people in the offseason. Obviously, having Wink here, NFL background.

“So, we’re going to leave Thursday. We’re going to do everything normal on Thursday. I know guys probably would want to leave early Thursday, but they need to go to class. They’re still student-athletes. So, they’ll go to class, do all that, and then we’ll leave Thursday, be there Friday. We’ll get a chance to practice at The Bolt, which is cool — I know they got an away game. So, that’s another great Michigan connection, Michigan West. So, we’ll leave Thursday, get there Friday, spend all day Friday, and make it as normal as possible for the kids, and then play on Saturday.”

But why do teams struggle so much to travel? After all, in the NFL, players travel all the time, and it doesn’t really matter if it’s from one coast to the other. It’s quite usual. Yet, in college football, games have tended to have not only a regional flair but a regional capability outside of bowl season (when teams are at their new locale for nearly a full week).

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Moore says the team is going to take advantage of an extra day in LA to get some sleep, get on Pacific time, and rehydrate after the long flight out West.

“I think it’s the same thing like when you travel, just in general, when you go into time zones and you’re adjusting to the clock and you’re adjusting through the air,” Moore said. “Flying dehydrates you. That’s one thing. And then you’ve got to recover a little bit more. So, I think it’s just different atmospheres, not necessarily just being away.

“So, I think it’s just a challenge you have to attack because you go to the NFL, you’ve got to do the same thing, and the team’s flying this way, you’ve got to adjust as well. So, I think you can’t make those things an excuse. You’ve just got to go attack them and figure out ways to get better with it. So, that’s why we’re flying out Thursday, to hopefully have a better grasp on trying to make that like it’s Ann Arbor over there.”

Even so, Moore isn’t concerned about the cautionary tale that just was with the Nittany Lions losing at a previously winless UCLA.

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“That’s their game. That’s what happened to them. I’m not going to refer back to that,” Moore said. “They all saw it. They all know. They all understood what happened. We’re not them. So our narrative and our focus will be on us and how we go in this game — execution, and our plan, and our goal of what we’re going to do. So, yeah, I can’t speak to what they did and how they played. So, yeah, we’re just going to be worried about us.”

Michigan and USC will kick off at the LA Memorial Coliseum at 4:30 p.m. PDT (7:30 p.m. EDT) with the game set to be broadcast on NBC.

This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan football altering travel plans ahead of USC road trip