Big Ten coaches, leaders reportedly favor removal of preseason polls
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Big Ten Media Days wrapped up this week, and what a week it was. From start to finish, guns were blazing with the preferred method for the College Football Playoff and scheduling differences between the Big Ten and the SEC a constant topic.
Commissioner Tony Petitti set the tone with his preferred model for the Playoff with built-in automatic bids and play-in games within the conferences. The rest of the league followed his lead with the head coaches continually hammering on the difficulty of playing 9 conference games as a reason for needing built-in qualifiers for the Playoff.
The leaders within the Big Ten are also mostly unified on another key topic. According to ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg, he asked many coaches and league officials in Las Vegas about the topic of preseason polls, and the response was resounding.
According to Rittenberg, there was a consensus among those that he asked that the preseason polls should be “obliterated.” The reasoning was pointed at their being too much value placed on teams ranked to begin the season and the way they shape debates before anything is known about the season.
While B1G teams might not want to see the preseason polls, there’s a good chance the league benefits from them this year. Ohio State, as the reigning national champs, has a stake in being No. 1 to start the season, as does Penn State with a wealth of returners, and those teams are also among the teams with the best 2025 national championship odds at BetMGM.
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Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
