Jordan Rodgers isn’t buying the Big Ten takeover talk.
The former Vanderbilt quarterback and ESPN college football analyst weighed in on the sport’s biggest conference debate this week on ESPN’s “Get Up,” and while he acknowledged the Big Ten’s recent run of national titles, he still put the SEC at the top of the college football mountain ahead of the 2026 season.
“This conversation gets convoluted because the Big Ten has had the most success recently with national championships, no doubt,” Rodgers said. “The best league, to me, you have to look at who's the deepest, who has the most talent, who has the most teams that can actually compete for a national championship, and that's still the SEC.”
Rodgers’ argument centers on depth, talent and how many teams in a league can realistically chase a title. In his view, the Big Ten’s recent surge is real, but it doesn’t erase what the SEC has done over a much longer stretch.
“It’s easy for the Big Ten to say that now with the last three national championships. The SEC, within the last 20 years, has won 13 national championships with five different teams,” Rodgers said.
“So history tells us that the SEC is still the deepest; they still have the most talent. I think there's five rosters in the SEC that can compete for a national championship, and I don't think you can say that past three in the Big Ten.”
The debate is tough to settle because SEC and Big Ten teams usually only run into each other in the postseason. Over the last three seasons, the Big Ten’s national champions faced four SEC teams combined in the College Football Playoff. Ohio State played two SEC opponents during its 2025 title run, while Michigan and Indiana both knocked off Alabama on the way to their championship victories.
Elsewhere in the Big Ten’s recent playoff history, Oregon and Penn State haven’t faced an SEC team in at least three seasons. Penn State’s last meeting with an SEC opponent came in a Peach Bowl loss to Ole Miss three years ago, while Oregon opened Dan Lanning’s tenure with a 49-3 loss to Georgia.
Bowl results have also been hard to judge in this argument because opt-outs can muddy the picture. Iowa’s win over Vanderbilt in the 2025 Outback Bowl and Illinois’ victory over South Carolina in the 2024 Citrus Bowl are examples that still matter in the conversation. But Missouri’s win over Ohio State in the 2023 Cotton Bowl is harder to read because of opt-outs.
There will be a few more chances to compare the leagues directly in 2026. Three Big Ten-SEC matchups are set for the second week of the regular season: Ohio State at Texas, Oklahoma at Michigan and Mississippi State at Minnesota. The first two games feature teams expected to sit near the top of their conferences, while the third could serve as a useful test of which league has the better depth.
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