As the truth has a habit of waiting 20 or 30 years to emerge, maybe sometime around 2050 some retired Big Ten football coach or player will recall with a grimace the last weekend in September 2025, when the old conference reached a peak in its newfangled era of long flights.

In its second season since it hogged four West Coast schools to become coast-to-coast and wreaked worry about college athletes suffering unprecedented dehydration and fatigue, the Big Ten comes across a nutty pinnacle of an air-miles Saturday. All within a conference, unbeaten No. 1 Ohio State will play at unbeaten Washington (2,004 miles apart), unbeaten No. 6 Oregon will play at unbeaten No. 3 Penn State in the biggest national game of the week (2,287 miles), unbeaten No. 21 USC will play at No. 23 Illinois (1,700 m

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