"Current State of 18 Teams Satisfactory for Big Ten Commissioner"

Tony Petitti, the Big Ten commissioner, has the option to change his mind but is not looking to expand his 18-team conference.

During Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis on Tuesday, Petitti stated that he is currently "focused on the 18," echoing similar sentiments expressed by SEC commissioner Greg Sankey earlier this month.

According to Petitti, "We are content with our current state and our main focus is on getting our conference in order."

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This season, four teams are joining the Big Ten after leaving the Pac-12, including USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington.

Due to the challenges of scheduling with the addition of West Coast teams, Petitti is not considering any other potential members at this time, including those from the Atlantic Coast Conference who may be interested in joining the Big Ten.

One of the main concerns for the Big Ten is minimizing travel, especially with back-to-back road games. In order to address this, the conference has implemented a scheduling strategy to avoid consecutive cross-country trips, such as Maryland playing at Oregon on November 9th, which is a distance of about 2,820 miles by car or a long flight.

Petitti believes that scheduling should be constantly evaluated for each sport and is open to making adjustments based on feedback from student-athletes and coaches.

However, not all teams will be able to avoid long travel distances, as there is a significant difference between the most and least miles traveled in the Big Ten this football season.

UCLA will have the most travel miles at 22,000, while Indiana will have the least at 4,900. Purdue and Michigan are also among the teams with lower travel distances at approximately 5,100 and 5,200 miles, respectively.