Big Ten Media Days arrive in Chicago this week with the conference carrying a little bit of everything: a reigning national champion, a handful of teams with real title aspirations and a few programs trying to answer bigger questions before the season even kicks off.
The three-day event runs from Tuesday, July 28, through Thursday, July 30. Tuesday’s group includes Illinois, Iowa, Penn State, Rutgers, USC and Wisconsin.
Wednesday brings Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Oregon, Purdue and UCLA. Thursday wraps with Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Northwestern and Washington.
And because this is the first major checkpoint before the 2026 season, the conversations in Chicago should tell us plenty about where the league stands. Here are the five biggest storylines to keep an eye on.
Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State all show up with first-year head coaches trying to set the tone immediately, even if the situations are wildly different. Michigan is coming off a tumultuous 2025 season.
Michigan State has managed just one winning season in its last six. Penn State, meanwhile, has been a model of consistency, with a winning season in 20 of the last 21 years and zero no national titles.
What connects them is the same pressure point: Kyle Whittingham, Pat Fitzgerald and Matt Campbell all get their first real chance to speak publicly about building a new culture. How they handle the room - and how they interact with the players their programs bring - will say plenty about where things stand.
Indiana is walking into a very different kind of Media Days spotlight. After one of the most surprising seasons in college football, the Hoosiers are no longer trying to sneak up on anybody.
Now the question is whether they can back it up. Curt Cignetti is going to face plenty of questions about how he plans to sustain last season’s success without the element of surprise.
With a lot of talent gone, keeping the culture intact is the obvious starting point. If he sounds confident in his group early, that could tell you a lot about where Indiana is headed.
Ohio State, as always, is operating under a different standard. The Buckeyes keep reloading, whether it’s through the high school ranks or the transfer portal, and this offseason was no exception.
They had 11 players drafted this spring, but still kept quarterback Julian Sayin and wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, among others. In Columbus, the expectations never really change: beat Michigan and win it all.
Media Days will give Sayin, Smith and safety Jaylen McClain a chance to show how much cohesion this team has already built as it tries to get back to the title game.
Oregon’s Big Ten arrival has been loud, successful and still just short of the final breakthrough. The Ducks have gone 13-1 and 13-2 in their first two seasons in the league, won the Big Ten Championship in 2024 and then lost in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.
Last season, they reached the CFP semifinals before falling to Indiana. They keep getting mentioned among the sport’s elite, but the national title is still missing.
That’s what makes this week so interesting for Dan Lanning and company, especially with questions looming about the quarterback battle between Dante Moore and Nebraska transfer Dylan Raiola, defensive consistency and how this team finishes against top opponents.
And then there’s the possibility that Indiana wasn’t the only Big Ten team that can blow up the script. What the Hoosiers did last year had never been done in college football, but surprise teams show up every season.
Big Ten Media Days may not hand us a repeat of that kind of run, but it could help identify the next program ready to jump. Iowa, USC, Illinois and Nebraska are all names worth watching if confidence starts to rise in the right places.
Curt “Google me” Cignetti may have the loudest voice in the room, but he won’t be the only one worth listening to.
In Other News...
Michigan Just Got A Big Ten Reality Check
Michigan heads into Big Ten Media Days this week with a fresh face at the podium and a fresh dose of skepticism attached to the program. Kyle Whittingham will make his first appearance there as Michigans new head coach, and the preseason buzz around the Wolverines is already being shaped by an outside projection that puts them fifth in the conference. In a league that keeps getting tougher at the top, that is not exactly the kind of early respect a blueblood program usually wants.
Cleveland.coms poll slots Ohio State, Oregon, Indiana and USC ahead of Michigan, which is a reminder that the path back to the top tier will have to be earned, not assumed. The schedule does the Wolverines no favors either, with games against Iowa, Penn State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Indiana and Ohio State all looming as early proof points. How Michigan handles that stretch will say plenty about whether the preseason forecast was cautious or dead on. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Set To Host A Quarterback Recruit Fans Need To Watch
Michigans recruiting board keeps expanding, and the next name to watch is quarterback Jamar Howard. The three-star prospect in the 2028 class is set to be on campus for the Iowa game on Sept. 26, giving the Wolverines another chance to make an impression on a player who already has multiple offers and has become one of their top targets in that cycle.
Howard is not the only young defender and signal-caller drawing attention around Ann Arbor, either. Four-star linebacker Andre Alexander, who visited in June, has also been talking up the program after picking up around 20 offers, and his interest adds to the sense that Michigan is trying to stay aggressive with elite underclassmen while the staff sorts through the early stages of another important recruiting push. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Just Got A Preseason Snub Fans Saw Coming
The Athletics preseason All-Big Ten teams gave Michigan plenty of representation, with seven Wolverines landing on the list and one player cracking the first team. Even so, the broader takeaway for Michigan fans was hard to miss: the group that figures to shape the season is still being viewed with a little less certainty than the program might prefer, especially with key names spread across the second and third teams.
Jordan Marshall was among the Wolverines singled out, and he enters the year with the kind of profile that should make him one of the conferences more closely watched backs. He is hardly alone, either, with Andrew Marsh, Jake Guarnera, Rod Moore and Smith Snowden all drawing attention as players to track this fall, a reminder that Michigans preseason story is as much about proving voters wrong as it is about living up to the early buzz. [Read more 🡒]