Imagine going to play at a venue more than 2000 miles away, and coming back home at the oddest hours of the night. That’s the case for Stanford football ever since it broke away from the Pac-12 conference. To remain competitive, the program is now being pushed to challenging limits. Sadly, they don’t seem to have a way out.

It’s been some time since Stanford football has produced a result worthy of note. This was the case even when the school was in the Pac-12, just as it is in the ACC. Being one of only 4 programs left in the formerly elite conference, the school was forced to find a place elsewhere. They found a home in the ACC in 2024. But the added financial benefits and exposure that come with realignment have done little to help Stanford’s athletes. It’s taking a huge toll on the footballers.

Travel was a big, big factor that has affected Stanford since its move to the ACC. Sadly, Andrew Luck as a GM can’t do much about it. This season, 3 of the Cardinals’ away games have been held after 7 pm ET, John Canzano reported on his blog. The late finish then causes the players to return to campus in the wee hours of the next day. After those three games, the team could only set foot on the campus after 3 am. “It’s not easy,” one Stanford personnel told Canzano, after boarding a 10 pm flight home to San Francisco from North Carolina. This is clearly hampering their results.

Stanford is winless on its last 11 road trips. Adding more insight to this is that nine of those games were played outside the Pacific Time Zone. The closest ACC school to Stanford is Louisville, which is at least 2,300 miles away. That means players are traveling roughly 5,000 miles to and from home to continue being under a conference roof. The added distance also adds to the costs.

For the regular season alone, Sports Illustrated reported that Pac-12 West Coast Schools were going to incur an extra $3-3.5 million in travel costs for those going to the Big 10. But the pressure this puts on a struggling program like Stanford cannot be ignored. Oregon and USC have the juice to survive the additional brunt. But Stanford doesn’t.

Former Cardinal player Bradford Freeman donated $50 million to help. But the added boost is yet to impact the football program. Stanford has been brutally decimated by away opponents in 4 of its 6 losses on the road this season. The impact of long-distance clashes on football hasn’t been discussed as much because the games are weekly. Stanford athletes in sports that play multiple games a week are going through a much rougher schedule. ACC women’s basketball teams crossing between the Eastern and Pacific U.S. time zones had a mere 23.3% win percentage.

Even the men’s basketball teams suffered. A 6-26 (18.8%) in road games, after crossing all four U.S. continental time zones. But the Stanford football team can breathe a sigh of relief. It plays its last two games at home, and it’s probably the only element that’s helped interim HC Frank Reich bring the 4 wins so far. But the next Cardinal HC has to be prepared for an extremely tough schedule.

Looking back at Stanford’s 2024 travel issues

Before the 2024 season began, FSU Wire did its survey. Unfortunately, Stanford came out at #2. Their total distance to travel was estimated at a whopping 21,229 miles. The shortest round trip for the program and its student-athlete was 45 miles for the Week 14 clash at San Jose State. But the longest round trip was 5,808 miles for the Week 10 encounter at NC State. To put things into perspective, the Clemson Tigers’ total distance to travel is just 3,140 miles. With this, even the future looks tough.

Next year, Stanford is in for a relentless season. Right at the beginning of the schedule, the Cardinals play 4 back-to-back games on the road, reportedly. The first two–San Jose State and California–are still within reach. But the Cardinal goes straight to Duke, and then to Louisville. Both schools are roughly the same distance apart. Stanford then stays home for the majority of the season and then gets back on the road for the last two.

It visits North Carolina one more time to play Wake Forest and then goes all the way to Indiana to play Notre Dame. The West Coast schools in the ACC being so far away from the others can force them to play so many away games. Florida canceled its 2026 and 2027 games with California, for example. The next HC also has to fix the issues on the road to help snap this disappointing losing streak.

Stanford is paying an extremely tough price to have a roof over its head. It still is technically a Power 4 team in college football, but it is not producing the results that help solidify that label.