Caleb Downs nearly helped Alabama to a national championship as a freshman in 2023, and he won that national title with Ohio State in 2024.
Downs has experience at the highest levels of the SEC and Big Ten that not too many players can boast, and he shared his thoughts on playing in both of college football’s biggest power conferences while appearing on David Pollack’s See Ball Get Ball podcast on Friday morning.
The SEC Freshman of the Year and 2nd-team All-American with the Crimson Tide a few years ago, Downs decided to bolt for the Big Ten for the 2024 season, and he was rewarded. Downs helped lead the Buckeyes to a national championship he came 2 wins away from winning at Alabama, and he was a unanimous All-American in 2024.
Now, Downs has a shot at more hardware with Ohio State in 2025, and he was recently named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year after a stellar junior season he hopes will carry all the way through to January. On the eve of Saturday night’s Big Ten Championship Game against Indiana, Downs spoke about those days in the SEC and his current experiences in the Big Ten.
“I would definitely say in the SEC, you’re playing every week and you’re playing like top (competition) every week. That was something when I was at Alabama, every week, like we’ve got Tennessee this week, LSU next week, then we’ve got Auburn. You’re playing dudes every week. That’s something you prepare your body for, prepare your mind for,” Downs said. “In the Big Ten, you’re going to have 4 or 5 games maybe where you’re going to have to play high-level competition and be at your highest point. That’s the difference.”
Downs didn’t mean to disparage the Big Ten he now resides in, and after getting to Ohio State he realized there were Big Ten teams more than capable of beating SEC teams in bowl games, because he saw it happen.
Here is the full clip of Downs breaking down his SEC/Big Ten experience with Pollack:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
