Tuesday’s opening bell for Big Ten media days is almost guaranteed to come with some noise, and not the quiet kind. After four days of SEC talk last week, the next wave figures to be just as loud, with the Big 12 likely catching some of the stray shots.
The Big Ten has plenty it can lean on. Expect the league to point to its last three national championships and pound its chest about being the best football conference in the country from top to bottom. That kind of message is coming, even if the rest of the sport doesn’t buy it.
Which makes the commissioner watch worth paying attention to. The question isn’t whether someone will say it - it’s who will say it. The source of the bluster may matter less than the volume.
Elsewhere in the Big 12, Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire still doesn’t seem interested in easing up on Texas. He spent all summer taking shots at the Longhorns, and even after sitting beside Steve Sarkisian at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention last week, he didn’t exactly give off the vibe that the edge is gone. McGuire put his arm around Sarkisian and made clear there was no bad blood, but the appetite for the matchup still hangs there.
That kind of in-state friction is part of what keeps college football fun, and McGuire has shown he’s not shy about leaning into it. From a fan’s standpoint, that’s the kind of rivalry energy the sport could use more of.
And then there’s Oklahoma State, which has now added a robot to the mix. The school partnered with Monarc, a Chicago-based sports technology company, and introduced “Seeker,” a robot that can throw touchdowns, kick field goals and execute punts. It doesn’t look like a robot in the movie sense; it’s more of a launcher-type device, similar to the automatic free-throw retrievers used elsewhere.
Several schools are already using similar devices, and Oklahoma State is the latest to jump in. Whether people like it or not, robots are becoming part of the college sports landscape.
In Other News...
Houston Is In The Big 12 Talk But One Doubt Remains
ESPN analyst Greg McElroys early look at the Big 12 entering 2026 puts Texas Tech in a familiar but still meaningful spot: among the leagues teams most likely to push for the playoff. He grouped the Red Raiders with BYU, Utah and Houston as programs that can stay in the conversation, while pointing to the conferences churn on the sideline and the absence of the kind of star power that usually separates championship contenders from the rest.
For Texas Tech, that kind of national respect comes with a familiar caveat. The Red Raiders have already been positioned as the leagues clearest favorite in many eyes, but McElroys broader skepticism about the Big 12 raises the same question that followed last seasons Orange Bowl run against Oregon: can a team from this conference make the leap from playoff hopeful to true title threat, or is there still one more hurdle standing in the way? [Read more 🡒]