The Southeastern Conference has been the king of college football since the early 2000s, winning 14 national championships and frequently featuring multiple title-contending teams. But when Michigan knocked off the University of Alabama in the 2024 Rose Bowl, it felt like more than a bowl win. For the first time since 2015, the College Football Playoff championship would be played without a SEC team.
The moment felt like a shift in the landscape of college football. What followed has only confirmed it: the Big Ten has taken the throne of college football from the SEC.
Two Big Ten teams remain in the CFP — No. 1 Indiana and No. 5 Oregon. Although they play each other in the Peach Bowl on Friday, they are the highest-remaining seeds and have the rosters most equipped to win it all.
Indiana’s defense has allowed the second-fewest points per game this season. Its offense, lead by Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza, has scored the fourth-most points per game. But in postseason football, efficiency alone isn’t enough; possession is everything. Indiana’s best-in-the-country turnover margin of +1.4 will be a key factor in the Peach Bowl and potential National Championship.
Oregon limits the pass well, only allowing 153.4 passing yards a game — good enough for second in the country. On the other side of the ball, the Ducks are putting up the fifth-most yards per game in the country at 6.8 and can explode for big plays changing the game in an instant.
The most probable finish to this year’s season, according to betting markets and analysts, is a Big Ten team hoisting the National Championship Trophy for the third consecutive year.
If Indiana or Oregon can finish the season with the title, the Big Ten’s run will continue, and it will further the conference’s status as the blueprint for college football.
As recently as 2022, though, after the University of Georgia’s back-to-back title runs in the 2021 and 2022 seasons, it didn’t look like the SEC was going to slow down.
But when Michigan defeated Alabama in the semifinals the next year, shutting the SEC out of the championship, the shift began.
This continued into the next season, as the semifinals featured two Big Ten teams and only one SEC team — the University of Texas at Austin. Texas put up a fight, but eventually lost 28-14 to Ohio State, advancing the Buckeyes to the national championship. After their win, and a second consecutive season that saw the SEC struggle to contend for a title, it was no longer speculation; the SEC had fallen off its throne.
The 2025-26 season saw quite a few SEC teams competing for a spot in the playoff. No. 14 Vanderbilt University and No. 13 Texas finished just outside the CFP, while five SEC schools were selected to the field. The SEC’s seven total contenders were much more than any other conference.
Based on that stat alone, it would be easy to say the SEC is the best. But how did it perform? Those seven teams went 4-5. Two of those wins came from the No. 6 University of Mississippi, which is the only SEC team remaining in the CFP this season. In the rest of the SEC teams' bowl games, it has a total record of 4-9, while the Big Ten is currently 9-4.
SEC fans like to point to their strength of schedule, claiming Big Ten teams wouldn’t survive playing SEC football all year. But the bowl games this year have shown the Big Ten is just as deep, if not deeper, of a conference. The postseason has also shown that teams which weren’t seen as threats during the season, such as Iowa and Illinois, could handle SEC competition after taking out Vanderbilt and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Indiana is the clearest example of why this shift is real. A school that was for a long time the losingest in all of Division I football is now undefeated, statistically dominant and just dismantled the most historic SEC team by 35 points on college football’s biggest stage.
In a matter of two years since the Big Ten started its supremacy, Indiana has become a driving force propped by its depth, unique roster construction targeting more experienced players and message it has sent to the rest of the country.
The last three years have given us more than enough evidence that the tide has shifted. The Big Ten is the better conference.
Since the beginning of the 12-team CFP, Big Ten schools have simply outperformed SEC schools, not only in the playoff, but in other bowl games, as well. The elite of the Big Ten trumps the elite of the SEC. Three Big Ten schools are ranked in the top five and two are in the semifinals, while the SEC has only one of each.
The SEC does have historical status, having been the pinnacle of college football for decades. But that’s history now. Ever since Michigan took down Alabama in the 2024 Rose Bowl and jump started a new era of college football, the Big Ten has controlled its destiny, winning championships and all the big games that matter. It’s the Big Ten’s time now, and it’s just the beginning.
