It was Michigan last year and Ohio State this year. Two in a row isn’t much of a streak, but for the Big Ten, it is something after the SEC ruled over the sport for so long.
ATLANTA — Dan Jarvis traveled here from Wheelersburg, Ohio, not merely to watch his Ohio State Buckeyes beat Notre Dame, 34-23, and win the national championship on Monday. He came with a sign so he could mock the SEC, which for most of the last two decades dominated college football.
Front Row: $8,000
Hotel: $1,000
SEC watching from home: Priceless
“No SEC today,” Jarvis crowed. “They are home, watching on TV.”
And for the second consecutive year, they had to watch a Big Ten team win it all. A year ago, Michigan maize and blue celebratory confetti flew in Houston. This year it was Ohio State scarlet and gray being blasted from a cannon.
Two in a row isn’t much of a streak, but for the Big Ten, it is something. SEC teams won 13 of the previous 17 national titles, including a stretch of seven consecutive. Alabama won six; Georgia, Florida and LSU took two each. Auburn had one.
Three of the others were won by Deep South ACC members — Clemson, twice, and Florida State. Only Ohio State’s triumph after the 2014 season broke the geographic lock.
Now this.
“I think we just play a lot of great football,” Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti said. “A lot of leagues play great football … what Ohio State accomplished and last year [with Michigan], both of them, just incredible runs.”
For most of the last two decades, Big Ten teams were after-thoughts. When they did reach the playoff, they often got run off the field, only to hear fans singing “SEC! SEC!” in celebration.
There is no such unity in the Big Ten — certainly not between bitter rivals Michigan and Ohio State. There were no “Big Ten” chants — just “O-H … I-O” ringing into the Atlanta night. Many Wolverines fans spent the buildup to this joking (we think) that they hoped a meteor would hit a title game between the Buckeyes and the nearly as hated Fighting Irish.
Not that anyone here was claiming they were rooting for Michigan a year ago either.
“I can’t say that,” Jarvis said. “It was a lot. Still, the Big Ten did it.”
This year’s “Playoff of Northern Aggression” — Penn State joined OSU and Notre Dame in the semifinals — may not be enough to ease generations of acrimony and animus, but it is a sign of a new era of college football.
With name, image and likeness and the transfer portal changing how rosters are built, the talent hasn’t just flattened out, it’s spread out. The ability to stack top-five recruiting classes on top of one another — which Alabama and Georgia had mastered — is no longer the only route here.
The SEC will be back, but for the Big Ten this feels like something is being unlocked.
Michigan’s championship was fueled when its NIL collective set up the “One More Year Fund” to use NIL money to encourage top players to return and chase a title rather than jump to the NFL Draft. Ohio State followed the blueprint this year — as much as they have been linked to a reported $20 million “salary,” much of it went to returning players.
They then filled some holes with transfer talent — including former Alabama safety Caleb Downs and Ole Miss running back Quinshon Judkins.
“People talked a lot about how much money guys were making in NIL,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said. “That was just because NIL was available. The majority of our team came back … when you hear that number, that doesn’t mean a whole lot other than the fact that the market value for our guys in Columbus at Ohio State is pretty high.”
It isn’t going down either, but Ohio State has the resources — and a massive fan base and big city — to meet it.
Big Ten schools are huge (66,901 students at Ohio State) with expansive alumni networks from states that are generally more populous and wealthy than SEC states. There are also more fabulously rich — 11 billionaires, for example, live in Michigan. None call Alabama home.
It’s not that there is no money in the SEC — it has Texas and Texas A&M, remember. It’s just that it is everywhere. And it’s above the table. Or as comedian Shane Gillis — a Notre Dame fan — said on ESPN, “Now that everybody can pay their players, Notre Dame has a shot.”
The ability to raise money to bridge geography — more good players hail from the South — has changed everything. It’s why no less than Alabama’s athletic director recently sent out a call for additional NIL funding from grassroots fans.
“Our competition has us in their sights and are actively trying to surge ahead with NIL,” Alabama AD Greg Byrne said in a letter. “You have heard examples of other teams using promises of million-dollar paydays to lure away our players or convince them not to come to Alabama. It is time for the Bama Nation to fight back.”
Michigan recently flipped the nation’s No. 1 recruit — quarterback Bryce Underwood — from LSU, whose NIL coffers were so depleted that head coach Brian Kelly donated $1 million of his own money to help.
Does that mean a Big Ten title run is coming? Not necessarily. Direct revenue sharing between schools and players should decrease the impact of NIL funding, although it won’t eliminate it. And the SEC is still the SEC.
What’s clear though, as Ohio State clinched the game courtesy of a transfer quarterback (Will Howard from Kansas State) and a megastar freshman receiver from the South (Jeremiah Smith from Miami, Florida), is that things are different.
That’s two in a row for the Big Ten, the second one coming right here in Atlanta. Penn State is bringing back much of its top talent, Indiana just rode a huge portal class to a playoff berth, Illinois is on early lists to make it next year and both Ohio State and Michigan are just ramping up.
No one is ready for an SEC-style chant of Big Ten pride; but no one misses hearing the SEC’s either.
