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As the Big Ten enters the season with another national champion – this time, the Indiana Hoosiers – the Big Ten vs. SEC debate has only heightened.
Since the Big Ten has won three-straight national titles, the continuous debates over which conference is superior continues, especially with FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt’s preseason Top 25. Klatt placed three teams in the top 5 – No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Ohio State and No. 5 Indiana – with his first SEC team coming in at No. 6 with the Georgia Bulldogs. But what has made a conference like the Big Ten more dominant than the SEC? The offensive talent.
For Cowherd, the four former Pac-12 teams benefited the Big Ten, emphasizing that the competition levels have soared with the quarterback play and coaching.
“The quality of offensive coaching and quarterback play out West has always been great. You’ve now added that to the Big Ten. And so, yes, the Big Ten was better than the Pac-12,” Cowherd said on Tuesday’s edition of The Herd. “Jayden Maiava, Lincoln Riley, Jedd Fisch, [Demond] Williams Jr., Oregon, Dante Moore, Nico Iamaleava, super talented kid. Basically, the Pac-12 gave the Big Ten a little flair and creativity.”
Three of the four former Pac-12 teams found their way into Klatt’s preseason top 15: Oregon at No. 1, USC at No. 12 and Washington at No. 20. However, UCLA’s new head coach in Bob Chesney and another year of quarterback Nico Iamaleava could make the Bruins a strong competitor.
Signal-callers like USC’s Jayden Maiava, Oregon’s Dante Moore and Washington’s Demond Williams Jr. have already laid the foundation of last season’s performance. Moore led the Ducks to a CFP semifinal appearance, and Maiava led the Big Ten in passing yards with 3,711. Going up against true Big Ten teams like Ohio State and Indiana, the conference is filled with elite quarterback talent.
For Klatt, the coaching talent deserves just as much credit as the quarterback himself.
“I think that it’s transforming the league. It’s not just Dante Moore in Oregon. It’s not just Maiava at USC. You mentioned Iamaleava at UCLA. It’s also Demond Williams at Washington with Jedd Fisch, an offensive-oriented guy,” Klatt said on The Herd. “So all of these teams come in, and they can play offense, and it makes it difficult to go out west and play these teams, in particular on the long road trip. It’s a very deep league. There’s no doubt.”
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