Paul Finebaum acknowledges Big Ten is in ‘driver’s seat’ over SEC to win national title
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Paul Finebaum giving the Big Ten credit for anything is always like pulling teeth, because the longtime ESPN college football analyst bleeds SEC.
But on Tuesday morning during an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up, college football’s mouth of the South had to have a stiff upper lip and acknowledge something he feels is pretty clear through Week 5 of the 2025 season. And that is that the Big Ten has a much better chance of winning this season’s national title than the SEC.
Of course, if the Big Ten is able to bring it home again in January, it would be the conference’s third straight national title, following Michigan’s championship in 2023 and Ohio State’s last season. The SEC hasn’t won a national title since Georgia captured back-to-back crowns in 2021 and 2022, and right now, Finebaum has a hard time seeing the SEC breaking through the hold he believes the Big Ten has on the top of the sport.
Going into Week 6, the Big Ten has the top 2 teams in the AP rankings in No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Oregon, with No. 7 Penn State and No. 8 Indiana giving the league 4 of the top 8 teams in the poll. Finebaum had to come out and say it on national TV, much as he hated to admit that the Big Ten is king right now.
When the national title favorites, according to ESPN Bet, were flashed on the screen, with Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State as the leaders, in that order, Finebaum couldn’t escape it.
“If you’re being honest about college football, and I’ve tried to be honest here, even if it hurts, the Big Ten is in the driver’s seat right now,” Finebaum said. “There’s no getting around it. The SEC is a mix and a mess. The good news for the SEC is it’s late September.”
There are still 2 more months left in the regular season, as Finebaum also acknowledged on Tuesday morning, so it remains to be seen what the rest of the campaign has in store. But right now, Finebaum was brutally honest about the current state of affairs in the sport.
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.
