DALLAS — On its path toward a National Championship, Ohio State once again established itself as the gold standard in the Big Ten before rumbling over non-conference powers Alabama and Oregon.
And as the confetti blotted the sky after the Buckeyes’ 42-20 win against the Ducks at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, it appears increasingly clear that just maybe the league isn’t as bad as we all thought it was.
Such a shift in the national conversation concerning the matter started on New Year’s Day, when the Big Ten notched a series of pivotal wins when the fourth-ranked Buckeyes toppled the top-ranked Crimson Tide, No. 7 Michigan State rallied past No. 5 Baylor and Wisconsin edged Auburn in overtime.
After the College Football Playoff’s grand finale Monday night, which featured a game where Urban Meyer and Ohio State controlled Oregon for most of the contest, perhaps Monday night is the latest example of a trend that sees the sport’s landscape returning to equilibrium.
In the splendor of victory, Ohio State tugs the Big Ten’s improving image along with for the ride. Let’s call it the coattail effect.
“I think it’s huge,” Meyer said. “Football is cyclical, first of all.”
For the better part of the last decade, the SEC has ruled with an iron first. This year, though, it failed to send a conference representative to the national championship game for the first time in eight years.
While’s it’s a stretch to conflate the Big Ten’s momentum for the SEC’s sudden demise, the gap between the two leagues has shrunk. Never has it been more apparent than this postseason.
“I think, still think top to bottom, we have some work to do in our conference, but it's moving,” Meyer said.
“Indiana goes and beats Missouri and they have a great coach in Kevin Wilson, some really good players. I see that program moving. You see Purdue made a great jump this year. But those are all the programs that, historically, when the Big Ten was the best, those teams were all the nine-win, 10-win and even some more.”
Instead, tradition league bottom-feeders like the Hoosiers, Boilermakers, Illinois and Northwestern went a combined 18-31. Minnesota made strides, but collapsed against Missouri. Iowa remains a middling program, Nebraska axed Bo Pelini after years of reciprocated frustration and Penn State, despite its first bowl win since the 2009-2010 season, is not the Nittany Lions of old.
Perhaps worst is how Michigan, college football’s winningest program, has fallen so far from its glory days that it’s no longer relevant when discussing the who’s who in the sport. To remedy that, of course, the Wolverines hired San Francisco coach and fiery dynamo Jim Harbaugh, who is expected to guide the program back to promience.
It’s why, when the Badgers played Auburn in the Outback Bowl, Meyer said he was “cheering like mad” for Wisconsin.
“I just thought it legitimizes everything that these guys did. You've been told you've been bad for so long, at times the psychologist part of it takes over. You start believing you're not very good, and that's not true at all,” he said.
“The same thing with the quality of football. High school football players in the North and the Midwest — they're great. Is the quantity a little bit lesser? Sure. The quantity is, but not the quality. The quality is outstanding, and I think that was a testimony of what happened in that game, the last few games.”
