UCLA is officially a member of the Big Ten. With the football season opener drawing near and many fall sports soon to begin, Daily Bruin Sports editors debate which UCLA team will make strides or face setbacks in its inaugural Big Ten season.
Ira Gorawara
Sports editor
Face setbacks: Football
The Pac-12 and the Big Ten have been at the forefront of college football in recent years.
Pac-12 After Dark ushered an extra layer of thrill to a conference that already boasted four teams with serious potential to make the College Football Playoffs.
But no, UCLA was not part of that list.
The Bruins are only entering a pool laden with even more talent, accompanied by three powerhouses from the Pac-12 – each of whom frequently tested the Bruins.
Not only will UCLA vie against Michigan and Ohio State – revered college football titans – they will continue to contend with Oregon, Washington and USC, each poised to finish in the upper echelons of the Big Ten next season.
Although the Bruins won’t meet the Buckeyes or Wolverines in 2024, they are slated to tackle the third-hardest schedule in college football.
Following a nonconference clash with LSU, newly minted head coach DeShaun Foster’s squad will confront Oregon for its conference opener, then travel to Beaver Stadium to meet Penn State and its renowned student section, before eventually embarking on a gauntlet featuring Iowa, Washington and USC in succession.
Nine of 11 2023 starters joined defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn in departing UCLA’s once-stellar defensive scheme. With a depleted defensive roster – the backbone of the Bruins’ success last year – and a predictably mediocre offense, the Bruins might find difficulty maneuvering against well-constructed Big Ten squads.
Whether UCLA’s conference realignment was a misstep hinges on its year ahead.
Kai Dizon
Assistant Sports editor
Make strides: Baseball
Coach John Savage said not to take the competition posed by the Big Ten lightly.
Ironically, Savage pointed to the former Pac-12 programs as the strongest among the Big Ten teams in the Bruins’ new home.
Since the College World Series’ inception in 1947, Pac-12 teams have made it to Omaha, Nebraska, 105 times – 12 fewer than the SEC’s nation-leading 117 appearances. Big Ten teams, on the other hand, have only made it 29 times, the fewest of any Power Five conference.
Just three Big Ten teams made the NCAA Regionals in 2024 – Illinois, Indiana and Nebraska – none of which made it to Super Regionals. No Big Ten squad has made the College World Series since Michigan defeated UCLA in 2019.
While UCLA will continue to compete with USC, Oregon and Washington, former Pac-12 standouts, Oregon State, Stanford and reigning Pac-12 champions Arizona are out of the picture.
If questions are to arise, they won’t be about the field of competition, but about the far-away literal fields instead.
UCLA is exchanging games in Northern California and Arizona for those in the Midwest. While all of UCLA’s programs will undergo increased travel this season, baseball typically plays a three-game weekend series away from Jackie Robinson Stadium every other week.
In February and March – the beginning of the collegiate season – that could mean playing in adverse weather conditions many of the Bruins aren’t accustomed to in Westwood.
But if the Bruins can regain their usual success under Savage and take advantage of a less competitive 2025 schedule – all else being equal – UCLA could return to an NCAA Regional for the first time since 2022.
Aaron Doyle
Assistant Sports editor
Face setbacks: Swim and dive
Big Ten swim and dive is one of the most competitive fields in all of collegiate sports.
Including the Bruins, six Big Ten teams are nationally ranked. Throughout the 2024 season, however, UCLA struggled to remain in the top 25.
UCLA took fourth at the Pac-12 championship this year, behind powerhouse programs California, USC and Stanford. The Bruins didn’t underperform – they simply weren’t strong enough to make the podium.
The climb to a conference title in the Big Ten will be steep. UCLA will have to outswim top programs such as Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin in order to make its mark in its first year in the conference.
UCLA got a taste of Big Ten competition in 2024, when it fell to Wisconsin at the UCSD tri-meet in January. The Badgers’ roster features two-time Olympian Phoebe Bacon, 2023 Big Ten Swimmer of the Year.
At the NCAA championships, Wisconsin beat UCLA by 59 points – one of five Big Ten programs that outplaced UCLA at the tournament.
Rising junior Rosie Murphy was one of the top backstrokers in the Pac-12, and Bacon will continue to keep Murphy on her toes. Bacon won the 200-meter backstroke at the 2024 NCAA national championships – the same event that Murphy holds the UCLA school record in.
Bacon will also prove to be a barrier to rising senior Paige MacEachern. MacEachern is the former school record holder in the 200-meter individual medley and placed sixth at the Pac-12 championship in the event. Bacon won the event at the Big Ten championships with a 1:54.29 time, over a second faster than MacEachern’s personal best at 1:55:97.
With Wisconsin’s Bacon leading the charge, swimming in the Big Ten will be no easy task for the Bruins.
Connor Dullinger
Assistant Sports editor
Make strides: Softball
The Big Ten is not a softball conference.
It comes nowhere near the SEC, Pac-12 or Big 12 in terms of dominance in the sport.
Prior to the Big Ten’s expansion, Michigan softball led the conference in national championship victories with one title.
But soon that will change.
UCLA will join the Big Ten with unparalleled success – 13 national championships and 20 national championship appearances.
The Bruins enter as the most historic program with little competition surrounding them.
Northwestern and new Big Ten member Washington – neither of which qualified for the 2024 Women’s College World Series – serve as the lone softball powerhouses in the conference.
And without perennial juggernauts Arizona and Stanford in its conference, UCLA will more easily maintain and evolve its winning ways.
A team’s entry into unfamiliar territory is eased with veteran leadership at the helm. Coach Kelly Inouye-Perez – in her 19th year as head coach for UCLA and 32nd with the program – has her fair share of experience.
With eight national championships under her belt – three as a player, three as an assistant coach and two as head honcho – Inouye-Perez will continue to dominate the Big Ten, something she did last year, as UCLA outscored 2024 Big Ten opponents 43-21.
Despite the departure of key players, such as Jadelyn Allchin, Maya Brady and Sharlize Palacios, the Bruins are retaining Pac-12 Freshman of the Year infielder Jordan Woolery, All-Pac-12 First Team pitcher Taylor Tinsley and NFCA Second Team All-American utility Megan Grant.
The return of a star-studded lineup coupled with a formidable incoming recruiting class and weaker Big Ten schedule indicates another historical year for the Bruins.
Una O’Farrell
Assistant Sports editor
Face setbacks: Women’s volleyball
The top four women’s volleyball teams in the Big Ten reached the third round of the 2023 NCAA tournament.
No. 1 seed Wisconsin worked its way to the semifinals, and No. 1 seed Nebraska – which achieved a 33-2 record on the season – made it all the way to a national championship appearance.
Meanwhile, a 10-10 conference record meant UCLA didn’t even qualify for the NCAA tournament – for the second straight year.
The Big Ten and the Pac-12 are arguably the two most competitive conferences for women’s volleyball. In the 12 years since UCLA last claimed the title, the national championship has been won by a member of one of the two conferences eight times.
But in 2023, the Bruins sat square in the middle of rankings in their final season in the Pac-12.
If the team struggled so severely in the Pac-12, it’s hard to envision it pulling off a Cinderella story and establishing itself as a serious force in the Big Ten.
It’s not to say the Bruins’ two-year NCAA tournament drought is incurable. Coach Alfee Reft’s 2024 roster will return linchpin Anna Dodson, the rising graduate student middle blocker who trained under Reft with Team USA in March after leading UCLA with a .364 hitting percentage in 2023.
Nevertheless, the Bruins will enter their new conference as serious underdogs in comparison to Big Ten titans Nebraska and Wisconsin.
And it might require a miracle for UCLA to earn an NCAA tournament appearance in 2024.
Sabrina Messiha
Assistant Sports editor
Make strides: Women’s golf
The Bruins were just a few strokes away from a national championship in 2024.
But it was their advancement to the finale that was a surprise to most.
After placing fourth in both the Pac-12 championships and the NCAA Las Vegas Regional, expectations for a UCLA championship berth were low. However, the familiarity of the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California, located only a 90-minute drive from Westwood, may have assisted the team in navigating the NCAA championships. Weather conditions were familiar for the Bruins, and the course was considered home to then-junior Meghan Royal.
While the Big Ten women’s golf conference is not necessarily more competitive than the Pac-12 – with five Pac-12 teams ranking within the top 15 last season compared to the Big Ten’s one team – increased travel and unfamiliar greens will present a challenge for the Bruins.
Not only will the Big Ten present unfamiliar courses to UCLA, but it will also come with East Coast weather conditions that are drastically different from what the Bruins are acclimated to on the West Coast.
While the Bruins proved their championship-earning capacity in the Pac-12, they will have to tackle unfamiliar territory and increased travel time as they enter the Big Ten.
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