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Ohio State won the national championship, beating Notre Dame.

SEC Football

The B1G takeover: Is the SEC sinking like a stone heading into 2025?

David Wasson

By David Wasson

Published:


There is absolutely no question that the 18 teams that comprise the Big Ten and the 16 teams that comprise the Southeastern Conference make up the proverbial lion’s share of heavyweight college football might.

They rake in billions in television revenue. Their commissioners are the biggest of bigwigs, whose opinions make news and change the very fabric of the game itself. And players from the Big Ten and SEC litter the NFL landscape once they’re done toiling in the “amateur” ranks.

But in the past 20 years, one conference has dominated where it really matters most: national championships.

That would be the SEC, of course. Since 2005, current SEC members have claimed 14 of 20 national championships – with Alabama raking in 6 all by itself.

But as our good friend Bob Dylan predicted for us way back in 1964, the times they are a-changin’.

That’s because the Big Ten is on quite the heater, having captured back-to-back national titles for the first time in 80 years. Which leads to the following question: Can the B1G Takeover be stopped?

Call it recency bias or call it divining the tea leaves, but there is no debate that the Big Ten is on a roll. Michigan ended its 26-year drought in a huge way by going 15-0 and winning the national championship last season.

That 12th national title was a consensus one for the Wolverines and came with both their third straight victory in The Game over Ohio State and a Big Ten championship game victory against Iowa. Michigan outlasted Alabama 27-20 in overtime in the Orange Bowl to qualify for the CFP title game and then thumped Washington 34-13 in said title game to hoist the hardware.

Ohio State didn’t get to its first national championship in 10 years and 9th overall title via the same route, of course. The Buckeyes didn’t beat their rival in The Game, didn’t qualify for or win the Big Ten Championship, and certainly didn’t finish undefeated. But what Ohio State did do was go on an epic run during the super-sized, 12-team College Football Playoff’s first season – earning victories over Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and ultimately Notre Dame to hoist the exact same hardware.

And the SEC? The self-proclaimed greatest football conference on Saban’s green Earth was watching Ohio State-Notre Dame on television like everyone else Monday night – mere spectators to the season finale that has practically been the conference’s birthright. Worse, it was the 2nd consecutive year the SEC sat out the title game.

In the past 20 years, a current SEC team has won or played for the Big Enchilada in all but 3 instances (2014 when Ohio State downed Oregon, and the past 2 seasons).

That 17 years of dominance/dominance adjacency would make anyone cocky, and the SEC certainly has the market cornered in cockiness. Again, Alabama was right there an awful lot in that span, but Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs also won 2 consecutive titles and lost in the championship game once (to Alabama). LSU also earned itself rings in 2007 and 2019, Florida claimed the 2006 and 2008 crowns and even Auburn won a ring and played for another in that stretch.

Now? Smart’s Georgia team is still picking up the pieces after their quarterfinal whipping from Notre Dame in New Orleans. Texas made it a week further, but couldn’t overcome the transcendent Buckeyes in Dallas. And Tennessee didn’t even make it out of the first round via the pimp hand of … wait for it … Ohio State.

There are plenty of theories rolling around as to just why the Big Ten is suddenly de rigueur now in college football. The torrential infusion of cash brought on by Name, Image and Likeness opened Pandora’s Box for the rest of the nation’s elite programs to start wantonly spending for talent the way the SEC was always accused of doing under the table. Heck, Ohio State made little secret that they operated under a $20 million payroll for the 2024 championship team – a long way, indeed, from the hundred-dollar handshakes and under-the-table bags that athletes used to get.

Another theory that feels more genuine (as one would be a simpleton if one actually believed boosters weren’t funneling cash to Big Ten players before NIL …) is that the Big Ten is simply more equipped to win when the lights are on bright and the entire world is watching. The SEC might fill half a dozen 100,000-seat stadiums on a given Saturday, but when push came to shove the past 2 years down the stretch, the Big Ten was doing the pushing and the SEC was getting shoved out of the way.

Will 2025 be any different? Not if you ask our friends in Las Vegas, who have already installed Ohio State as the betting favorite to repeat in some parlors. Others have Texas poised to climb the mountain, with Georgia and Oregon right there in the lead pack along with the Buckeyes and Longhorns.

No matter how you parse it, you gotta admit – as our friend Bob told us – that not only have the waters around us grown but that we better start swimming or we’ll sink like a stone – that the times, indeed are a-changin’. The Big Ten boys are in charge now, and it’s up to the SEC to catch them.

David Wasson

An APSE national award-winning writer and page designer, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.

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