SEC Breakaway Talks are Unserious, Given Big Ten's Football Dominance

Conference media days are upon us, which means the SEC is back to complaining about the state of college football.

During the conference's session on Monday, ESPN's Heather Dinich reported that conversations about the SEC seceding from the NCAA entirely were "very real."

"This is something that has been going on for months," Dinich said. "SEC presidents and chancellors have been talking about this since about February, when they met in Nashville to talk about options of self-governance if they cannot get federal legislation... If they can't get help from the federal government, get some antitrust protections so that every time [the NCAA tries] to make a rule, they don't get turned around and somebody sues them for it, that's what these conversations are about."

The Southeastern Conference dominated the sport for much of the 2000s and 2010s, and it'd be difficult to argue that the "It Just Means More" mantra wasn't well-deserved. However, it's become apparent in recent years that college football is now in an era of parity.

Since Georgia won back-to-back national titles with stellar 2021 and 2022 seasons, three different schools have won the championship. All three belong to the Big Ten, with Michigan going undefeated in 2023, Ohio State winning the inaugural 12-team Playoff in 2024 and Indiana completing a storybook run in 2025.

It's not merely enough of a story that the nation's top team hasn't belonged to the SEC in three years, but it is significant how the conference's best have fallen from grace. In the two seasons since the College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams, the SEC has gone just 7-13 in head-to-head games against the Big Ten. That record is even worse at 2-8 when zeroing in on postseason matchups, where the Illinois Fighting Illini have particularly thrived.

Of the 12 bowl games that an SEC team played in last season, the conference won just four. However, two of those games were against other SEC teams (Alabama over Oklahoma, Ole Miss over Georgia in the CFP), meaning the league was just 2-8 in games in which it was forced to play non-SEC teams.

Teams and conferences will have bad years. It happens. The issue is that the SEC continues to believe it is superior to other leagues when the data and the results prove otherwise. Any talks of secession or the idea of creating a "Champions League" in college football is not grounded in reality.

Depth was always the selling point for the SEC's dominance, but now, the conference doesn't even have that. The Big Ten's best teams are better, as Indiana clobbered Alabama in the 2025 CFP and Ohio State beat Texas in the 2024 CFP. The middle tier is better too, with results like Iowa over Vanderbilt and Illinois over Tennessee proving the Big Ten's mettle.

Illinois' success against the SEC hasn't been a long-standing trend, but Bret Bielema has powered his team to wins in recent years. After taking Mississippi State to the wire in the 2023 ReliaQuest Bowl, Illinois took down South Carolina in the 2024 Citrus Bowl and Tennessee in the 2025 Music City Bowl.

The SEC vs. the Big Ten should be an incredible rivalry during a time of parity, and yet, the SEC has spent the better part of the past two years theorizing about how it would win a hypothetical matchup, while the Big Ten has actually been winning said matchups.

Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said at Monday's SEC Media Day that the reason the Big Ten had won three consecutive national titles was that the conference didn't mandate teams play a nonconference game against a Power Four opponent. Drinkwitz's Tigers spent 12 weeks in the AP Poll last season despite going 0-5 against ranked opponents and facing FCS Central Arkansas (3-9), Kansas (5-7) and Louisiana (6-7) in nonconference play.

Instead of committing themselves to improving on the field, the SEC has taken its pleas to the United States government, hoping to quell the NIL and revenue-sharing storm that the league helped create. The storied conference will likely spend this summer and fall complaining about how unfair it is that it has fallen behind. When that happens, it's important to remember exactly how the recent matchups between the SEC and Big Ten have gone on the field, not in a hypothetical scenario.