CHICAGO — The talking season is coming to an end rapidly as college football teams will begin preseason training camps within the next several days. USC, in fact, with an early Aug. 29 game against San Jose State is already hard at work.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti welcomed in coaches and players from all 18 conference schools for the Big Ten Media Days last week at the Hilton Chicago. We have sifted through the hundreds of hours of video and audio from the week to find the most important and most interesting comments.
The topics included the ongoing war of words between the Big Ten and the SEC over which league is the best, the discussion on expansion to a possible 24-team College Football Playoff and many more issues impacting the conference heading into the 2026 season.
We shared our preseason Big Ten power rankings in this column. On Tuesday, Ohio State was voted as the preseason No. 1 team in the coaches poll.
Ohio State was voted by a media poll conducted by Cleveland.com to be the team to beat in the Big Ten. Oregon came in second, while defending national champion Indiana was picked third. The Hoosiers, a longtime league doormat, defeated Oregon twice last season (once in the regular season and again in a CFB Playoff semifinal game). Indiana also upset Ohio State 13-10 in the Big Ten championship game.
That was Indiana’s first win over Ohio State since 1988. It gave the Hoosiers their first Big Ten championship since 1967 and paved the way for the program’s first-ever national championship.
This year, Indiana and Oregon are not scheduled to play. Ohio State, however, will visit Indiana on Oct. 17 and will host Oregon on Nov. 7 in two of the biggest games in the Big Ten this season. For the second year in a row, the Big Ten will host a matchup of the last two national champions. It was Michigan at Ohio State last November and will be Ohio State at Indiana this coming season.
Looking back to his team’s loss to Indiana, Ohio State coach Ryan Day could only lament mistakes that were made at critical moments in that tight loss.
“When you look at the Indiana game, to me, a big part of that was our inability to win the situational plays, the short yardage and goal line and red zone plays,” Day said. “So you take a hard look at that and figure out as we move into next year, we’ve got to be better in those areas. But that’s the tale of playing in a matchup game and championship games.”
Reflecting on that game, OSU quarterback Julian Sayin added, “We didn’t execute the way we wanted to last year. I think you always think about certain plays. You have maybe four or five plays. If we just hit this, maybe things would have been different.
“I think you always watch those. You also look at the analytical standpoint. How are we out third down and what do we do here? It’s a big part of the game. I think there’s no substitute for experience. It was great to have that experience last season.”
Sayin knows it will be off the chain when the Buckeyes visit Bloomington in October for what could be the biggest game in the history of 52,929-seat Memorial Stadium.
“That is going to be a fun matchup and we know they’re a good program,” he said.
Below are some of the best quips and comments from Big Ten players and coaches from the conference Media Days.
