EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsCHICAGO - Standing with the Big Ten's three consecutive national title trophies positioned unsubtly to his right, league commissioner Tony Petitti made clear to attendees of the Big Ten media days that his league has emerged as the class of college football with its postseason dominance in the 12-team playoff era.The Big Ten has won four CFP games in a row directly against the SEC, which hasn't had a team play for the conference title in the last three years.And the Big Ten has 11 wins by seven different teams the last two years in the 12-team CFP era, outpacing the five wins of the SEC. "More than double the next best league," Petitti added after sharing that stat.Illinois coach Bret Bielema, who has been an outspoken social media critic of any notion of SEC superiority, doubled down on that idea Tuesday. He joked about the SEC: "They want to live in 2005 forever."Bielema later smiled and said, "I think I just made the headline, huh?"While the Big Ten's championships are unquestioned, some chatter from the SEC's media days hinted that the middle class of that league is better. In the last two years, the Big Ten is 8-2 in bowl games against the SEC.Bielema's been beating the drum on social media, in part, because Illinois beat Tennessee in the postseason in 2024 and No. 14 South Carolina in 2024. He elaborated on the dig at the SEC from 2005 by pointing out how the transfer portal and ability to compensate players has transformed the sport. "When those two elements came into college football, the whole world changed," Bielema said. "I mean, it's overly obvious to say that, but I think anything to predate that is just a different time in college football."That's left the Big Ten with bragging rights after years of SEC chants at title games, SEC speed on the field, and championship dominance. Petitti pushed back at the idea that the SEC has more depth, pointing to how prepared Big Ten teams are to thrive in the postseason."This idea that the middle of our conference isn't hard, is just not right," he said. "At the end of the day, our teams are ready for the CFP. Our travel looks like the CFP travel. You're going all over the country. How we play, the difficulty on the road in the Big 10, I just think that's overlooked."The reason why we've been so successful is our teams are prepared. When the best teams in any given season play each other, that's great. That prepares them. But you also get through a lot of really difficult games."Petitti spent a significant amount of time talking about the SEC, as he addressed the loose and, ultimately inconsequential, talk of that league breaking away. And he also spoke about the alignment between the leagues in attempting to get Congressional help for the future of college athletics.Petitti said that he'd like to see the Big Ten play the SEC more in the regular season. And he doesn't expect that the SEC could fully break away. "I've never heard that anybody doesn't want to play anybody else," he said. "We want to schedule more good games that our fans expect. We just got to get to a system that allows us to do that."He spoke about the potential of the Protect College Sports Act not passing - still the expected outcome - and what would happen next to college sports."I think the first place you go is with our colleagues in the other conferences. SEC, ACC, Big 12, Pac-12, also a defendant, and the NCAA," he said. "How do we come together to make the necessary changes to the way the settlement is operating so we can give our athletic directors, our coaches, our student-athletes a system that seems to be more sustainable and more predictable?"As for the Senate bill, Petitti said he and other leagues expect to see the formal language from Washington, D.C. later Tuesday. He said they've been waiting for a while, and any next steps will come after they see where things end up.Petitti acknowledged the Senate bill won't offer "a perfect path."He said that he and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey have spoken five times Tuesday morning about the bill and that the Big Ten needs to see if the bill provides "more help than not."Petitti added: "If we can get to that place, then we can move into a position very quickly to support the bill. But again, until I see where we are, we're not quite ready to say that."
