Red and white confetti rained down at Hard Rock Stadium after Indiana won the national championship against Miami.
One of the historically worst programs among power conferences and a team that Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza labeled as a “bunch of misfits” went 16-0 and brought a trophy back to Bloomington, Indiana. It made it the third straight season a team from the Big Ten won the national title.
Long gone are the days where the Big Ten played second fiddle to the SEC. Right now, it’s emerged as the premier conference in college football.
Before Indiana, it was Ohio State and Michigan that won the previous two titles. In the four years prior, the SEC won the last four championships with two from Georgia, one from Alabama and one from LSU.
Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza (15) lines up a pass during the Penn State football game against Indiana at Beaver Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025 in University Park, Pa. The Hoosiers beat the Nittany Lions 27-24.
Sawyer Hadlum
From 2020-22, the SEC went 22-15 in bowl games while the Big Ten went 15-13, showing that across the board the SEC not only won the national title, but reached bowl eligibility at a higher rate.
From 2023-24, the Big Ten was 17-10 while the SEC posted a 13-11 tally in the postseason.This season, the Big Ten went 11-5 in bowl games while SEC went 4-10. When the two conferences competed against each other, the Big Ten boasted a 3-1 record.
The SEC had five teams reach the College Football Playoff, while the Big Ten had three. The Big Ten had two teams with first-round byes in Indiana and Ohio State — The SEC had one in Georgia.
The success from the Big Ten is notable because of the differences in regular-season scheduling — the Big Ten played nine conference games while the SEC only played eight.
Indiana and Oregon became the final Big Ten teams remaining, with the Hoosiers beating the Ducks to punch their ticket to the title game. For the SEC, Ole Miss reached the College Football Playoff semifinal as well, but lost to the Hurricanes.
The SEC views playing each other as superior competition, which should benefit their strength of schedule, but in turn this isn’t a reality, as its teams schedule nonconference opponents to essentially set up four free wins.
The one extra conference win in the Big Ten provides a tougher task than most of the nonconference schedules SEC teams have, and can be the difference-maker in SEC teams making it into the postseason with one less loss.
The aforementioned triumphs are part of the fact that college football’s landscape has clearly changed. There’s a significant amount of money that is being allocated across all conferences with NIL, and the transfer portal gives schools an opportunity to revamp their programs.
Still, Curt Cignetti shut down any idea of that helping the Hoosiers win the national title, saying postgame, “our NIL is nowhere near where people think it is, so you can throw that out.” But, he also hinted not so subtly that times are changing as far as who is the cream of the crop in the sport.
“College football has changed quite a bit, the balance of power also,” Cignetti said.
The first down chain stands on the field during the Big Ten championship football game between Penn State and Oregon in Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024 in Indianapolis, Ind. The Ducks beat the Nittany Lions 45-37.
Kate Hildebrand
That comment also applies to Indiana as a whole, as the expectation is the Hoosiers’ run won’t be one of a storybook season. Instead, it’ll be the start of continuous runs to the postseason and label as a year in, year out national title contender.
After all, the program went from the most all-time losses for power conference programs to winning a national championship in two seasons under Cignetti.
The mantra from the SEC is “it just means more.” It means that the play in the conference is above any other league in the country.
That phrase held true for a while. Now, it no longer means more. The SEC had its time on the throne, but there’s been a change of power in college football.
The Big Ten.
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After one year with Penn State, Enai White is heading to a new school.
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