Lincoln Riley discusses the challenge of preparing for 9 a.m. body clock kick

Conference realignment has had more than a few side effects. One of those is that, along with the extensive travel that comes in the Big Ten, teams are jumping time zones. That’s a challenge that the USC Trojans and head coach Lincoln Riley are trying to navigate this week.

USC is set to play a 9:00 a.m. body clock kickoff on the road against Illinois this week. That’s a challenge that Riley went into some detail discussing on Trojans Live ahead of the game.

“I think it’s just handling the entire week well,” Lincoln Riley said. “Because if you don’t really recover, and give the guys a chance to recover, and if you’re not smart with your schedule, you arrive home late from Purdue. You have the late kickoff here. Then it kind of flips and goes the other way. So, it’ll put a lot of responsibility on us and our team to really do a good job with recovery here this week. Making sure that, A, obviously, we have a great week of practice. Then, B, we can transition to get ready to play the game. So, listen, everybody’s got to deal with it in some way, whether it’s East Coast teams going West or vice versa.”

This isn’t the first unique kickoff time USC has had to deal with this season. The Trojans have also seen weather delays and late kickoffs. That, notably, included last week when 8:00 p.m. local time, making for an 11:00 p.m. body clock kick for visiting Michigan State. So, it’s not just a challenge that Riley faces or the West Coast teams must navigate within the conference.

For USC, this isn’t an entirely unique situation. Even going back before they joined the Big Ten, Riley has occasionally had to deal with these early kicks. That’s something that can come with the territory when you’re traveling from one coast or the other.

“This will be our first one, honestly, since Colorado, our second year. That ended up being a really early kick as well. Obviously, we didn’t have to travel quite as far,” Riley said. “But, obviously, there was a lot of similarities and we were able to go in there and start fast and go play well and win the game. So, yeah, it’s just one of those things you’ve got to overcome as a team, and we’ve overcame the first two that were unique in their own way. This one will be too. We’ve got to rise up and get it done again.”

Lincoln Riley and USC are expecting to be tested by a ranked Illinois team coming off a massive loss to Indiana. The Fighting Illini will be looking to prove themselves among their Big Ten peers. So, USC can expect a very game opponent on the field while they’re dealing with those body clock concerns.