Paul Finebaum has waved the white flag when it comes to the SEC’s dominance over college football, but his SEC Network colleague Peter Burns is not ready to give up the fight.
After Ohio State defeated Notre Dame to win the national championship this week, it meant that Big Ten teams have won back-to-back titles for the first time since 1942 after Michigan’s triumph last season. After years of dominance by the SEC at the top of college football, there seems to be a seismic shift taking place in a new era of NIL and player movement.
But in spite of the evidence that the last two seasons has laid forth, maybe it’s not a surprise that someone who works for the SEC Network would be the last person left standing defending that turf.
Burns put forth a similar debate that we heard before the playoff when the likes of Alabama, Ole Miss, and South Carolina were left out in favor of Indiana and SMU. And although the Hoosiers and Mustangs were heavily criticized after their defeats to Notre Dame and Penn State, those takes aged pretty poorly. In fact, Indiana played Notre Dame closer than Georgia did.
In a post on X, Peter Burns called the Big Ten love affair “nonsense” and chalked up Michigan and Ohio State’s success to being a “nice outlier.”
No, The Big 10 hasn’t surpassed the SEC as a football league.
2 teams having historic runs in back to back seasons is a nice outlier rather than the norm.
Incredibly top heavy league who’s had just 2 teams that have won a title in 35+ years
Stop this nonsense.
— Peter Burns (@PeterBurnsESPN) January 22, 2025
Of course, what Burns forgets to mention is that the Big Ten got several marque victories against the SEC both in the College Football Playoff and other bowl games. The Big Ten went 5-1 in the postseason this year against the SEC including upsets of Michigan over Alabama in the ReliaQuest Bowl and USC over Texas A&M in the Las Vegas Bowl. When mid-pack Big Ten teams are beating SEC teams that supposedly were snubbed from the playoff head-to-head, it destroys any attempt at saying the SEC is still on top of the college football world. That’s not to mention Ohio State beating Tennessee and Texas on their way to the championship and Alabama beating Michigan likewise last year.
Even Burns’ ESPN colleagues like Adam Rittenberg (who has spent a lot of time covering the Big Ten) took issue with his post that attempted to further the shattered myth of the SEC’s conference superiority over everyone else.
Both leagues are top-heavy, PB, and the SEC still has a bit more overall depth. The thing that pisses off a lot of people is when objectively average or slightly above average SEC teams reflexively get ranked because of … what? The league’s rep? Media influence?
— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) January 22, 2025
Maybe once Illinois gets the same poll treatment Ole Miss does year in and year out, maybe then things will finally be different.
If you want to take it a step further, the SEC has had some pretty major outliers in recent years outside the Alabama-Georgia axis of Nick Saban and Kirby Smart. They have five of six SEC titles in the CFP era with only Joe Burrow’s LSU squad also climbing the mountain. Beyond that, Florida hasn’t sniffed a title since the days of Urban Meyer and neither has Auburn since Cam Newton.
You can always take facts to fit whatever narrative you like, but there’s no denying the reality of what happened in college football this year, regardless of how hard you try to do so. It doesn’t negate the SEC’s greatness in years past and it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen again in the future. But right now the Big Ten is enjoying their moment. That won’t stop Peter Burns and others declaring that the SEC will always be number one where it matters most though – hypothetical matchups where they can never, ever lose.