Following conference realignment in the United States, coaches from the recently expanded Big Ten conference eagerly anticipate the new racing schedules.
Following the collapse of the Pac-12 conference due to broadcasting deals in Football, Washington, UCLA and USC will be racing in the Big Ten conference. This has traditionally been for schools located in the Midwest and North East of the US. The three West Coast programmes join the eight existing schools that offer rowing; Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Rutgers, and Wisconsin.
Iowa Hawkeyes Head Coach Jeff Garbutt welcomed the decision to include the three additional schools.
“It’s exciting to be a part of this conference now, it’s like a super conference,” he explained. “So great to be a part of it and maybe a little bit daunting because you know your work is cut out for you every year but I challenge any conference to say they will be as competitive as we will this year.”
This year’s Big Ten Championships were won by Michigan but they were also joined at the NCAAs by Indiana, Ohio State, and Rutgers who all received at-large bids. This means that half the conference could contest the national championship demonstrating just how competitive the Big Ten is, and coaches only expect competition to increase.
“For years there’s always been conversations about the Big 10 and Pac 12 as to who the last team in from each conference will be to finish out the field,” continued Garbutt.
“This year, and I’m not exaggerating we could have seven teams from our conference who could potentially qualify for NCAAs and that’s a third of the field that could be rowing at the Big 10 championships every year.”
Rutgers Head Coach Justin Price echoed Garbutt’s sentiments and envisions the recent additions to the conference only having a positive impact on collegiate rowing in the US.
“At the end of the day, for our programme, we aspire to be amongst the best programmes in the country and we would like to be at the NCAA championships every year to be as high as we can, but we know we’ve got to earn that.
“Hopefully the NCAA committee will find this useful, particularly having 11 teams all racing together hopefully helps them figure it out as to who belongs [at the NCAAs].
“We want to make sure we do the work to and be one of them in the conversation and I think with the new teams in the conference and everyone else who has been here it’s going to continue to be at a really high level.”
As the West Coast schools get acquainted with life amongst their new competitors, they also bid farewell to the historic Pac-12 conference. Founded in 1915, the Pac 12 has played host to one of the world’s greatest rowing duels between California and Washington.
Away from rowing it also fostered the deep-rooted rivalry between the USC Trojans and the Stanford Cardinals on the Football field.
While the Pac-12 conference is set to be reborn with new member institutions, those who have left are looking ahead to new challenges, rather than dwelling on the past.
“We’re excited to see a new conference and new opponents.” Said UCLA Head Coach Previn Chandraratna.
“We loved the Pac 12 and it was the end of an era when it was closing up but I think that in many ways the West Coast crews are kind of underrated and you don’t see a lot of them because there’s a lot of discussion about east coast rowing.
“Now with the three schools (UCLA, USC, and Washington) in the mix in some of these mid-western races you’re going to get more excitement about the sport generally and that’s a great thing.
“We’ve already had our nose in the fire and our athletes are up for the challenge.”
The Big Ten championship also offers more racing opportunities and therefore, larger squads are required to contest the team trophy.
At this year’s Pac-12 championships, there were four eight races with the fourth varsity also including the novice eight event as well. This was in addition to the varsity four.
By contrast, the Big Ten championships had two additional fours events. Michigan won five out of the seven races with Rutgers and Ohio State winning the third and second fours respectively.
Kelsie Chaudoin who has only been at the helm of the Trojans for a few months, is not fazed by this squad size increase and insists the larger focus will always be on the big dance.
“In my conversations with our administrators, given the challenging admissions at USC and the way we’re looking at our team is to focus a bit more on our NCAA championship line-ups instead of building a second novice eight because I don’t think that makes the most sense.” Said Chaudoin
“Our focus is on qualifying for NCAAs more so than building up a second novice eight. Also, with me as a new head coach at USC, I felt the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze in building out a big walk-on programme in my first year.
“Maybe that’s something we look at in the future but at present, we’re focussed on the whole team contributing towards the speed of the NCAA line-ups.”
USC are in the unique position where their entire coaching staff are new this year, something that also resembles their squad of athletes, with around 50% of the team in their freshman year.
“Between them [the athletes] and our entirely new coaching staff, there’s a lot of open minds that are like sponges and eager to learn.
“The team has really been embracing the new coaching staff which I’ve been excited to see. It was definitely a concern of mine with all these changes but they’ve been embracing it and excited to learn.
“It’s not a cliquey team. We’re a smaller team than other Big Ten teams with a roster of 50 people so it was clear they get on and that the Trojan family is alive and well at USC. The next evolution of that is bringing a competitive fire.”
While USC has been to the NCAAs 13 times, with a programme-high finish of 4th in 2013. Despite missing out on the championships in 2024, UCLA’s drought at the big dance is even longer. The Bruins have been to the NCAAs on four occasions but their last trip was 10 years ago.
While the SEC could be considered the fastest conference with nation champions Texas and third-place Tennessee going blow for blow with Alabama and Oklahoma, the depth of the Big 10 is unrivalled. The addition of the expanded Big Ten Invite makes for a mouthwatering schedule in the spring of 2025.
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