Will Big Ten seize upon final 3 weeks after taking a back seat to SEC all season?

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The Big Ten is in a weird place.

And no, we’re not talking about the league’s private equity push. Though that’s pretty weird too. This is about the conference’s on-field quandary in 2025. The Big Ten has the nation’s top two teams and three teams inside the top seven of the latest College Football Playoff rankings along with the two favorites for the Heisman Trophy. And yet the league has taken a back seat to the SEC all season long.

The TV numbers bear that out. Starkly. Through the first 12 weeks of the season, Big Ten teams have played in just five of the two most-watched games on any given weekend. And of those five games, two of them — Ohio State’s Week 1 win over Texas and Michigan’s Week 2 loss to Oklahoma — involved SEC teams.

Conversely, SEC teams have played in 19 of the 24 games that have either been the most-watched or second most-watched in a weekend.

Can part of that be explained by Penn State’s struggles? Not really. The Nittany Lions were ranked No. 2 in the preseason AP Top 25 but are 4-6 and fired coach James Franklin halfway through the season. However, Penn State’s overtime loss to Oregon was the No. 2 most-watched game in Week 5, the Nittany Lions’ trip to Ohio State was only behind Georgia and Florida in Week 10 and PSU's near-win over Indiana was the No. 2 game in Week 11.

The easiest answer is that the 16-team SEC has simply had more compelling matchups on a weekly basis. As Week 12 in the SEC was headlined by Oklahoma’s visit to Alabama and Texas’ trip to Georgia — two games that each got over 10 million viewers — the 18-team Big Ten’s prime TV games were Michigan at Northwestern, Penn State at Michigan State and UCLA at Ohio State.

None of those games cracked 4 million.

It’s been a rough season for the Big Ten and its TV partners. But the league finally has a chance for three straight weekends of headlining games starting on Saturday.

Thanks to the SEC teams’ annual push to play non-conference opponents in the penultimate weekend of the season, the league’s best game is No. 22 Missouri at No. 8 Oklahoma at Noon ET. The Big Ten, meanwhile, has a virtual playoff elimination game between No. 15 USC and No. 7 Oregon on CBS at 3:30 p.m. The SEC games at the same time? Kentucky’s trip to No. 14 Vanderbilt and Arkansas’ visit to No. 17 Texas.

It’ll be a massive disappointment for both the league and CBS if the Ducks and Trojans aren’t the most-watched game of Week 13.

In Week 14, the Big Ten is guaranteed to dominate Saturday with No. 1 Ohio State’s trip to No. 18 Michigan. Though last year’s game was the least-watched in seven years because Michigan was unranked, it still drew over 12 million viewers and was the second most-watched game of the regular season behind Georgia’s win over Texas.

With both the Wolverines and Buckeyes ranked this year, viewership should rebound and could come close to the 16.6 million that watched Ohio State beat Texas in Week 1.

If Ohio State beats Michigan and stays undefeated, the Big Ten will also get the chance to headline conference championship weekend. A matchup between 12-0 Ohio State and 12-0 Indiana would be the first time the top two teams in either the College Football Playoff or BCS rankings met for a conference title since No. 1 Alabama played No. 2 Florida for the SEC title in 2009.

Back then, a national title shot was on the line. This time, it’d only be for the top seed in the 12-team playoff.

But the game would also have the added benefit of being a potential Heisman-deciding matchup. Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza is currently the Heisman favorite ahead of Ohio State’s Julian Sayin. But with Heisman voting set to close less than 48 hours after the game ends, whoever plays the best in Indianapolis could sway undecided voters.

Is a strong finishing kick enough to dethrone the SEC this year? Probably not. But the Big Ten also won't be complaining if one of its teams is winning the College Football Playoff for the third straight season. 

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