Nobody does Big Ten football like Las Vegas.
OK, maybe we’ll see about that, but this week all 18 member schools will hit The Strip, ready to embark on a 2025 season that brings all the usual intrigue and excitement amid sweeping changes to college athletics.
Here’s a look at five big questions ahead of Big Ten media days.
▶ Revenue sharing is here. How will Big Ten teams approach it?
With the strike of a gavel, Judge Claudia Wilken ushered in yet another new era of college football when she approved the House v. NCAA settlement. In addition to paying a decade of college athletes for the revenue generated by their talents, the settlement also introduced revenue sharing between schools and their athletes, as well as the removal of scholarship limits in favor of roster limits. So where does that leave the Big Ten’s teams?
This question isn’t just the biggest one for the Big Ten. It’s the biggest question in college sports, period. On July 1, schools gained the right to distribute up to $20.5 million in revenue sharing with their athletes, which puts a historically well-funded conference in an even firmer position as a destination for players, coaches and (maybe) schools.
With right comes responsibility, and in the case of revenue sharing, schools had to find $20.5 million to dole out. Some schools (like Michigan) found it with little trouble. Some athletic departments (like Michigan State) had to take out a loan from their larger university. What’s clear is that those who can share in the revenue will be at an advantage, and those who can’t may be left behind.
“Most athletics departments’ budgets are in the red to some degree,” MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz told The Detroit News on June 13.
The Big Ten has some strong revenue streams to draw from. For one, there’s that $7 billion media rights deal with Fox, CBS and NBC. Outside of TV deals, there’s a lot of marketing money brought in from those advantages. And even if the College Sports Commission and Deloitte’s NIL Go will try to regulate external NIL deals, don’t think for a minute that schools won’t continue to muscle up in the NIL space where Big Ten dollars have been influential.
Officially speaking, revenue sharing isn’t even a month old, so there is a lot for schools to iron out and experiment with in the coming weeks. Expect this conversation to dominate the coming season, for the Big Ten and the NCAA.
▶ Who’s this season’s dark horse?
A season ago, Indiana ranked 17th in the Big Ten preseason media poll. Then first-year coach Curt Cignetti rattled off 10 straight wins and wound up in the College Football Playoff. As much as preseason expectations give a sense of the league, there’s always bound to be a sleeper.
So who’s this year’s Indiana? There are a number of candidates. Michigan State feels like a team poised to take a quiet leap with a winnable schedule. Iowa may be overlooked, building on a strong 2024 with some talent in the portal. And if we’re talking about the new coach effect, Purdue with Barry Odom at the helm should surely do better than last year’s 0-9 effort in Big Ten games.
Here’s something else to look at: strength of schedule. Part of what got Indiana into the conversation is that as talented as the Hoosiers were, they faced seven Big Ten teams that finished with losing records in conference play.
There are some teams in similar position this year. Illinois returned some key players from a strong 2024 season, including quarterback Luke Altmyer. Its toughest nonconference game will be at Duke, but seven of its upcoming Big Ten opponents finished with losing records in the conference last year. And though few would consider the Wolverines a scrappy underdog like the Hoosiers were, Michigan’s upcoming Big Ten opponents combined for just 27 conference wins last season (lowest in the league). It’s hard to imagine a 10-2 or better Michigan team not making the 12-team playoff. Speaking of which …
▶ If playoff expansion is due, then what will it look like?
We’re just one season into the expanded CFP field, and some leaders are ready for another addition.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti isn’t shy about his desire for a 16-team playoff that will give both the Big Ten and SEC four automatic bids. To him, it’s about positioning his own conference for success, as well as taking more power out of the hands of an arbitrary selection committee and making rigid paths to the postseason similar to professional leagues.
“We think bigger is better,” Petitti told Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt last month. “I think 12 is not enough teams given the size of the teams that are competing. You look at professional leagues, they go somewhere between 40% and 50% of their teams qualifying for the postseason. We’re way below that, even at 16.”
The reason to expand is simple for the sport’s top teams. More playoff spots mean more games, and more games mean more money. Right now, schools make $4 million just for making the CFP, plus $4 million for making the quarterfinals and an extra $6 million for semifinal and championship game berths. That’s not to mention the increased revenue in merchandise and other areas that an excited fan base tends to spend on. Big bags of money, and those used to earning it like to keep the cash flowing.
Petitti’s format would give two conferences half of the playoff field, putting leagues like the Big 12 and ACC (two berths each) in tough spots. That’s not to mention continuing to put the Group of Six in a subordinate role, with just one guaranteed spot for the best among them.
There’s a rift between the Big Ten’s and SEC’s visions, which is probably why this is a question and not a complete story. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wants a bracket where the five highest-ranked conference champions get an auto bid and 11 at-large bids are doled out by the committee.
It’s a complicated path ahead, and Big Ten commissioners are clear that there’s research to be done. There’s the issue of imbalanced conference schedules, where the SEC plays eight conference games and the Big Ten plays nine, and how exactly will those four auto bids be selected (Petitti is in favor of play-in games).
“I think it still needs to be discussed and worked through,” Michigan AD Warde Manuel, who was the chair of the CFP last season, told The Detroit News in June. “There are issues on both sides of it that need to be worked out and talked about. And scheduling and how many games — I mean, we don’t even play the same amount of (conference) games yet, so it’s hard to get to something different than we have now, or to envision something moving forward when we don’t have the same pieces.”
Regardless of the configuration, there’s bound to be an expansion sometime soon, and that stands to benefit the Big Ten’s members.
▶ Does Ohio State have the pieces to repeat?
The Big Ten produced the past two national champions. Will it produce the next? One of the best candidates is Ohio State, fresh off its 2024 title with some key pieces returning.
The Buckeyes may have the best offensive and defensive players in the conference: sophomore wide receiver Jeremiah Smith and junior safety Caleb Downs. A top-five overall recruiting class strengthens a unit that lost some key talent from last year’s $20 million squad, which saw 14 NFL Draft picks depart (four in the first round).
This year’s team will be talented. Quarterback Julian Sayin is well-regarded as the likely heir to Will Howard. Tight end Max Klare is a good portal pickup from Purdue. Years of strong recruiting leave the Buckeyes with a number of talented successors at a number of positions.
Looking at the schedule, Ohio State faces a stiff test in Week 1’s bout with Arch Manning’s Texas Longhorns. In the Big Ten playbill, the Buckeyes’ opponents aren’t as daunting. Fellow conference front-runner Penn State visits The Shoe in November, possibly a premature Big Ten title game. And that pesky Michigan plays host a few weeks later riding a four-game win streak in The Game. That’s a schedule that should yield a CFP berth, even with a couple losses.
Only one school — Georgia (2021 and 2022) — has gone back-to-back in the CFP era. Fourteen teams have won back-to-back titles overall. Five Big Ten schools are among them (Michigan, Minnesota, USC, Michigan State and Nebraska), with the most recent being the Cornhuskers’ 1994 and 1995 titles.
▶ What is the future of the Big Ten championship game?
The Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis has been played since 2011. When the CFP was a four-team affair, the title game had real stakes — win it and you strengthen your case to appear in the field; lose it and you’re on the outside looking in. But even with an auto bid to the playoff hanging in the balance, the game has lost some meaning. The two top-seeded Big Ten teams are going to make the playoff whether they’ve received an auto bid or not.
Last year, Oregon won the Big Ten title game and made the CFP as the No. 1 seed, only for three other Big Ten peers — including the Penn State team it beat for the crown — to also make the 12-team field. It was at the hands of Ohio State (who didn’t make the conference title game at all) that the Ducks had their wings clipped in a 41-21 Rose Bowl rout. And those Buckeyes won the national championship. But hey, a Big Ten championship is better than nothing.
As an expanded playoff field puts less and less emphasis on the conference championship games, look for some alterations to the format. It’s one more game that, at this point, is superfluous. As more playoff games alter how teams approach the pitch count of the season, it’s worth considering the point of the title game in the first place.
Petitti himself discussed the potential for play-in games on Klatt’s show, meant as a way for teams to play more “meaningful” games down the stretch.
“I want more teams to feel like they’re chasing that opportunity to compete for a national championship,” Petitti said.
As the Big Ten and SEC continue pressing for more advantages as the NCAA’s premier conferences, the fate of conference championship games may lie in the future of the playoff. However auto bids are laid out in the 16-team field will likely determine whether the title game is traded for play-ins, or whether some other solution comes to be.
cearegood@detroitnews.com
@ConnorEaregood
