Is it safe to say that the Big Ten is the best conference in college football today?
The Indiana Hoosiers capped off their flawless run to the National Championship with a gutsy, hard-fought win over the Miami Hurricanes, who were the representative of the ACC.
Yes, the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Indiana's 16-0 run to the title completed the 3rd straight season that a Big Ten team hoisted the trophy. Michigan won the title in 2023, followed by the Ohio State Buckeyes in 2024, prior to the Hoosiers in 2025. It's been an incredible run for the Big Ten, but has it been enough to call this conference the best one in college football?
In this era of college football, emphatically yes.
Much of the conversation in college football these days is pitting the Big Ten against the SEC and seeing which conference reigns supreme. I think the argument is a silly and trivial one, but here we are.
Not only have Big Ten teams won the last three Championships, but none of the opponents have been from the Southeastern Conference.
Michigan took down Washington, Ohio State defeated Notre Dame, and the Hoosiers beat Miami. None of the opponents were even from the SEC, so that is just another data point in the entire argument.
Ever since NIL equalled the playing field across the country because, allegedly, teams from the SEC were paying players consistently to get them and keep them in their programs, things have changed.
Now that every school can pay its players, the dispersion of talent has evened out across the country, and for the big picture of the sport, it is such a healthy thing. However, what it has exposed is that coaching matters just as much as talent acquisition. Some of the best coaches in America are in the Big Ten.
The best argument that I heard on the topic came from the latest episode of the Josh Pate College Football Show, where he posed multiple questions, all based on the National Championship result in the scope of the next five to ten years of the two conferences.
There are several qualifiers there, with the point being, is now the time to definitely declare the Big Ten as supreme? He asked if Ole Miss would have beaten Miami and then upset Indiana; would that have changed anything? The answer is no.
The Big Ten is simply in a better spot than the SEC and the other conferences. The top teams in the conference aren't inflated by fraudulent rankings or just by beating up on each other week after week.
Big Ten teams are real.
If you have to go to Kinnick Stadium in October, look out. How about a trip to Ann Arbor in November? Ask Indiana what it is like to go to Happy Valley in October, and God forbid you have to go to Columbus at anytime.
Those are just a few examples of how the talent in the Big Ten is leveling out and how compared to the SEC, it is just simply a better conference, no debate.
The Big Ten has better top-tier teams, they have better mid-tier teams, and they have better bottom feeders.
Top to bottom, this era of College Football is the Big Ten's, and I could see it lasting several more years.