RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. — Outside the meeting rooms at a swanky resort in Southern California, the Big Ten displayed some signature art for the league’s annual meetings.
It prominently featured three of the national championship trophies won by the conference this year — Indiana’s football trophy and the basketball trophies won by the UCLA women and Michigan men.
Coming off three consecutive national titles in football, the Big Ten’s voice will be heard louder this offseason. The league formally invited reporters to the spring meetings, a departure from the recent past and a move that mimics the heavily covered SEC meetings that take place annually in Florida after Memorial Day.
“I just felt like if messages were getting out of one part of the country and not the other part of the country, some of the things that we wanted to share that we really believe in was getting missed,” said Washington football coach Jedd Fisch, who advocated for more coverage of the meetings.
Fisch rattled off the names of the past six football teams to play for the national championship — Washington, Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Indiana and Miami. None are in the SEC.
“I think if we continued to not express that,” he said of the Big Ten’s message, “it was going to be much harder for the whole nation to understand where we’re coming from.”
It’s clear from the early snippets of conversation that the Big Ten coaches remain convicted on moving to a 24-team College Football Playoff, an idea that began in the conference less than a year ago and has gained support across the ACC and Big 12.
Whether the idea gains traction at the highest levels of the SEC will be a question that looms over the sport next week, as it is clearly the model favored by Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti.
Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck said the popularity of the 24-team CFP idea comes from goal of having more meaningful November games across the league.
“It’s got tremendous steam and power behind it,” Fleck said, “especially from the 18 head coaches in the Big Ten. When you do a lot of things that everybody’s 18-for-18 for what we should do, I think it speaks volumes.”
“I just felt like if messages were getting out of one part of the country and not the other part of the country, some of the things that we wanted to share that we really believe in was getting missed.”
Washington football coach Jedd Fisch
The idea would have to coincide with other changes, including the elimination of conference title games and moving the start of the season to Week 0. It would also mean the football season would have to end earlier, as this upcoming season culminates Jan. 25, 2027.
“The season needs to be pushed up,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said. “We need to finish the season much sooner. Let’s have this all done by the first week in January so we have a season that makes sense.”
One topic that generated the most spirited discussion Sunday was a controversial new punting alignment rule that passed this year. The Big Ten coaches were strongly against it, as they have deemed it nearly impossible to officiate.
An idea that coaches brought up is that college football should have its own competition committee, much like the NFL, to navigate such issues.
