USC will avoid the Ohio State Buckeyes in its first trip around the Big Ten.

That was one of the larger storylines surrounding the Big Ten’s 2024 and 2025 schedule release last week. The Trojans get Michigan and Wisconsin at home as well as a trip to State College to face Penn State, but the Big Ten’s highest-profile member won’t be on the schedule until 2025. (UCLA, meanwhile, got both Michigan and Ohio State in Year 1.)

Greg McElroy thinks that’s a shame.

“I wish badly we could have figured out a way to get Ohio State and USC on the schedule every year,” the ESPN analyst said recently on the Always College Football podcast. “Why? Because that game is going to do a mammoth number. Mammoth. And in the television world where eyeballs are everything, I would love to see SC and I’d love to see Ohio State on the field at the same time.

“I understand natural rivalries. I know geographic rivalries. I get that. But if we can create rivalries amongst the best teams, that, I think, will be the best for college football as we move forward.”

The Buckeyes have just one protected rival in the new scheduling model for the 16-team B1G — Michigan. USC has just one as well in UCLA.

With the College Football Playoff moving to an expanded 12-team field, it remains to be seen how the selection committee will value strength of schedule against losses. Once that data point gets a bit more fleshed out, perhaps the B1G reconsiders some of its protected rivalries.

TV partners would obviously want the best inventory possible. And if the league knows that its top teams would get the benefit of the doubt from the selection committee for playing its other top teams, the case for an annual Trojan-Buckeye clash would get pretty strong.