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The Big Ten has won the last two college football national championships with Michigan and Ohio State. But does that make the conference the best in the country ahead of the SEC?
Fox Sports analyst Colin Cowherd seems to think so, although his reasoning isn’t exactly the most sound. According to Cowherd, the Big Ten has passed the SEC not due to onfield results, but because of the types of donors the schools have in the NIL Era.
Has the Big Ten overtaken the SEC as the top conference in college football? @colincowherd pic.twitter.com/dkDt4XpNVO
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) July 21, 2025
Colin Cowherd Believes Big City Money Has Pushed The Big Ten Past The SEC
“This is one of those things, and it’s going to be hard to stomach for a lot of people, the Big Ten is officially better than the SEC,” Cowherd said. “It’s not just that Ohio State won the national championship last year, it’s that they humiliated Tennessee and dominated Texas.
“Something’s changing and what’s changing is money,” he continued. “Big Ten schools are bigger. They have more graduates. It’s easier to raise money for NIL. You add in Phil Knight and the Nike money, add in USC and the LA economy money, the Big Ten cities, LA, New York, Rutgers, Chicago, Northwestern, Minneapolis, DC, Seattle.”
Listen, as a Penn State graduate, I’d love for what Cowherd said to be true. But the argument falls apart with just a little bit of research. To start, Ohio State did not dominate Texas. In fact, Texas had the ball in the red zone looking to tie the game with just over two minutes remaining.
Additionally, Cowherd asserts that SEC money largely comes from “car dealerships” which are running on “razor-thin margins.”
That is also not true. Donors to SEC schools come from everywhere. Whether it’s oil magnates, agricultural company executives, or countless CEOs, the money in SEC isn’t going to run dry anytime soon.
Has the Big Ten closed the gap to the SEC significantly in recent years? Absolutely. Programs like Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon and USC can go head-to-head with any school in the country financially. Penn State, while not quite as strong economically, made the College Football Playoff semifinals last year and is a popular pick to win it all this year. So the Big Ten is certainly on the upswing.
But the SEC isn’t going anyway, and it wouldn’t surprise a single soul if a program such as Texas or Georgia won a national championship this season.