AP Top 25 Football: Notre Dame, Oregon, USF Have Farthest to Travel in Week 9

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish will fly 1,800 miles west and cross three time zones this week to play the Navy Midshipmen, a farther trip than any other Associated Press Top 10 football team will have to travel for all of their remaining games combined.

The third ranked Irish have almost 7,000 miles to go before they arrive in Los Angeles for the season finale against the USC Trojans.

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Compare that to the top ranked Alabama Crimson Tide, who have just one, 350-mile trip to Baton Rouge remaining on their schedule. Or the 10th ranked UCF Knights, who need to go just 104 miles from Orlando to meet their remaining travel obligations.

Here are the top Week 9 travel distances for the Associated Press’ Top 25 teams. All distances are one-way.

• #3 Notre Dame: 1,800 air miles (2,154 road miles) to San Diego to play Navy. This trip includes crossings of the Eastern, Central and Mountain time zones for a game in the Pacific time zone.
• #19 Oregon Ducks: 951 air miles (1,272 road miles) to Phoenix to play the Arizona Wildcats. This is the Ducks’ longest road trip of the year.
• #21 South Florida Bulls: 779 air miles (986 road miles) to Texas to play the Houston Cougars.
• #14 Washington State Cougars: 690 air miles (906 road miles) to Palo Alto to play the Stanford Cardinal.
• #15 Washington Huskies: 672 air miles (801 road miles) to Berkeley to play the California Golden Bears.
• #18 Iowa Hawkeyes: 721 air miles (777 road miles) to State College to play the Penn State Nittany Lions. This includes a crossing of Central time zone into the Eastern time zone.
• #23 Utah Utes: 568 air miles (683 road miles) to Pasadena to play the UCLA Bruins. This includes a crossing over the Mountain time zone into the Pacific time zone.
• #22 N.C. State Wolfpack: 520 air miles (649 road miles) to Central New York to play the Syracuse Orange.
• #16 Texas A&M Aggies: 496 air miles (573 road miles) to Starkville to play the Mississippi St. Bulldogs
• #12 Kentucky Wildcats: The Wildcats can fly 315 air miles to St. Louis, then take a 120-mile bus ride to Columbia to play the Missouri Tigers. (There is also a 431 mile trip by plane from Lexington to Columbia.) Or they can drive the entire 462 miles directly to Faurot Field. Either way, they’ll cross from Eastern to Central time.
• #6 Texas Longhorns: 406 air miles (438 road miles) to Stillwater to play the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
• #2 Clemson Tigers: 334 air miles (354 road miles) to Tallahassee to play the Florida State Seminoles.
• #7 Georgia Bulldogs: 270 air miles (341 road miles) to Gainesville 257 air miles (339 road miles) to Jacksonville to play the Florida Gators.
• #25 Appalachian St. Mountaineers: 317 road miles to Stateboro to play the Georgia Southern Eagles.
• #20 Wisconsin Badgers: 151 road miles to Evanston to play the Northwestern Wildcats
• Playing at home: The #8 Oklahoma Sooners, the #9 Gators, the #13 West Virginia Mountaineers, the #17 Nittany Lions and the #24 Cardinal.
• Not playing this weekend: #1 Alabama, #4 LSU Tigers, #5 Michigan Wolverines, #10 Knights, #11 Ohio State Buckeyes

Here are the season travel and remaining travel schedules for 54 Football Bowl Subdivision teams, including 37 teams that received votes in this week’s AP Poll. (An abridged version immediately follows this text.)