00:00I think one of the interesting things, I mean, obviously Ryan Day will have a high placement on there. It's
00:04the amount of Big Ten coaches that will be in the top 25 before I've really like analyzed it. I
00:11mean, the coaching in the conference is probably at an all time high.
00:15I think when you bring in Matt Campbell and Kyle Whittingham, who were perennially top 25 guys anyway, and then
00:23you have where do you put Kurt Signetti and what he's done in the last three years at two schools
00:27that had no business having the success that they've had.
00:31Lincoln Riley sliding down a little bit, but still a top 25 coach in the sport.
00:36So the coaching in the conference, I would say that's as strong as it's ever been.
00:40You know, ever maybe like back when you were playing, obviously you had Jim Trestle and Lloyd Carr and Joe
00:46Paterno and Barry Alvarez.
00:48The Big Ten coaching was loaded then, and I think it contributed to the success of the league.
00:53And that's what we're seeing right now.
00:54Have you ever, Bill, thought about going back?
00:57And like you said, when I was early 2000s, Kirk Ferentz was still in Iowa.
01:03I mean, he just brought them off, I think, in his third or fourth year to that 11-1 record
01:08and had done a great job.
01:10And historically, you know, the last 20 years has done a great job.
01:13You know, Pat Fitzgerald returning, a guy that took Northwestern to two Big Ten championship games.
01:19Have you thought about going back and looking at like 10 years ago?
01:24And obviously the conferences have shifted and they've grown and some have disappeared.
01:29But like looking at this rise of the Big Ten over the last three years versus the SEC and seeing
01:36those top coaches and just trying to cluster.
01:39Like how many did the Big Ten have?
01:40How many did the SEC have in 2011, 12, 13, 14?
01:45Like in the midst of that big run?
01:47That's a great idea.
01:48I know I've ranked coaches at Sporting News since 2015.
01:52And what I do have is I need to go do that.
01:56You've given me an idea and more work to do.
01:57Thanks, Bobby.
01:58But I keep the top 10.
02:02So I've done this for 12 years.
02:04And I went back and looked at the top 10 over the years.
02:07And this year, like Dabo Sweeney, for example, for a decade, he's been a top five coach.
02:13Do you bump him out of the top five now knowing that, hey, he's got two national championships, but one
02:19of the criteria we rank on is last three years because it's kind of what have you done for me
02:23lately?
02:24And you probably can't say he's a top five coach the last three years.
02:28So he will be an interesting one to rank.
02:31And I just looking back at over the years, like you said, there was a point where the SEC had
02:37Saban, and this was before I was ranking him, Saban Meyer, who was Tennessee's coach at the time.
02:43Well, Tennessee's probably a bad example, but you get what I'm saying.
02:46They had national championship caliber coaches.
02:48Les Miles was probably ranked in the top five or 10 at the time.
02:51So that's what the Big Ten has now.
02:54They have two coaches with national titles.
02:58And just imagine, I know they don't want to hear this around Columbus, imagine if Oregon won the national title
03:03this year, and you would have four different schools winning national titles in four years.
03:08That's how the SEC piled up those titles in the BCS and the early four-team era.
03:13Well, and you look at it, I mean, Saban won seven of them.
03:16Urban won two of them.
03:19Kirby won two of them.
03:20You know, you had the Auburn one-off, and they played for another.
03:24But, I mean, really, a lot of it was Nick Saban.
03:26And so that's the one thing that the Big Ten has.
03:29You had three different champs in three years.
03:31Plus, you've had other teams that are knocking on the door.
03:34Like, the year that Ohio State won, they lost to Oregon earlier that season out in Eugene.
03:38You know, Oregon was in it again.
03:40So that's what's going to be really interesting.
03:42I know that, Tony Petit, as much as you want Ohio State, you know, and your big dogs to be
03:46out there, I mean, Oregon is, I mean, they're not a historic blue blood bill.
03:50But if I'm a high school kid coming out today, I mean, Oregon's a blue blood to me, probably more
03:56so than USC.
03:58Oregon's the best program in the country right now that hasn't won a national title.
04:02They have to be.
04:03If it's not them, it's, you know, this decade, maybe you could argue Ole Miss under Kiffin and the wins
04:08that they were having.
04:09But Oregon's been doing this since the late 90s, the whole uniform thing.
04:13And like you said, there's a generation of athletes now that gravitate toward that uniform thing.
04:19Other schools are doing it, and they've been doing it for a decade now where you have more than one
04:24uniform.
04:24So for the Ducks, I think it worked both ways going into this year.
04:28On one hand, you do have a top five, top ten coach in Dan Lanning.
04:32I don't want to give away where we have him, but they've won as much as anybody.
04:36They've come into the Big Ten, won a Big Ten championship, competed for another one.
04:41But it's those quarterfinal blowouts that kind of contrast that, I would say.
04:48You have all the success you get in the playoffs.
04:50You get hammered by the last two national champions.
04:53With what they have coming back on the roster, starting with Dante Moore in a loaded defense,
04:57I think there's going to be a little bit of pressure on Dan Lanning to go get it done this
05:01year.
Comments