Ad Disclosure
10 thoughts involving Big Ten football during the heat of spring practices
Published:
The Big Ten hasn’t won a men’s basketball championship since Michigan State back in 2000.
However, the conference built on big shoulders and Midwestern toughness doesn’t have this problem in college football. Right now, as the Big Ten‘s 18 programs grind their way through spring football, the league is still polishing its third straight national championship trophy, courtesy of Curt Cignetti and Indiana. It was Michigan that launched this title brigade in the 2023 season, rival Ohio State took the baton in 2024, and that means this fall (and maybe winter) the Big Ten will be gunning for a stunning championship 4-peat.
Sure, Big Ten basketball owned the sporting stage in the dying days of March and now in early April, but there’s always room on the same stage for Big Ten football, particularly because of all that recent hardware. There are plenty of topics to toss around right now, so here are 10 thoughts involving Big Ten football in the midst of those sweat-filled spring practices:
1. Kyle Whittingham loves Bryce Underwood, knows he needs work
Michigan’s new head coach is enamored with his sophomore quarterback, one of the gems of the 2025 recruiting cycle who had a lot of ups and certainly some downs, too, during his baptism by fire last fall. Whittingham went so far as to compare Underwood to former Auburn star and NFL MVP Cam Newton in a recent interview with On3.
The continued progression of Underwood in 2026 likely holds the direct key to Michigan getting back into the College Football Playoff, and Whittingham has been around long enough to kind of know that. To that end, he began his first spring practice in Ann Arbor by divulging to reporters a top goal of his for Year 1 — he’s hell bent on turning the still-raw Underwood into a “completely finished product,” which in turn should unlock the struggling Michigan passing game that helped prevent any Playoff in 2025. Whittingham has said that he sees Underwood as a leader and offensive captain material.
The Whittingham-Underwood dynamic will be fascinating to watch in 2026, starting now in the spring, when a fresh voice will be in Underwood’s ear and a proven winner like Whittingham will attempt to launch the transformation of his young signal caller. It’ll culminate with Michigan’s spring game on April 18, and then Whittingham can reassess things going into the summer.
2. Speaking of QBs, man does the Big Ten have a deep stable
The aforementioned Bryce Underwood has the potential to be a star one day, or maybe sooner than later, but at this moment he’s not even in the top 5 of Big Ten signal callers. That’s how deep the conference is at the quarterback position in 2026. When names like Minnesota‘s Drake Lindsey, Maryland‘s Malik Washington and UCLA‘s Nico Iamaleava are in the back end of the top 10 of Big Ten QBs, you know the league is ridiculously deep.
Iowa State transfer Rocco Becht followed Matt Campbell to Penn State, so with that familiarity Becht has the potential to immediately become one of the better quarterbacks in the Big Ten. Then, how’s this for a star-studded top 5, in no particular order — Washington‘s Demond Williams Jr., USC‘s Jayden Maiava, Indiana’s Josh Hoover, another transfer from TCU, Oregon‘s Dante Moore, who spurned the NFL Draft to return to Eugene, and Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, who finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting last season after a stellar first year as the Buckeyes’ starting QB.
A legitimate case could be made for any of those top 5 guys to be a Heisman candidate in 2026. Five QBs in 1 conference alone? That’s some stunning depth, and it’ll be on full display in about 5 months.
3. Indiana isn’t among Josh Pate’s 2 Big Ten title favorites
The college football analyst laid out his vision of the top of the Big Ten hierarchy in 2026 during a recent podcast, and he didn’t have the defending national champions in his top tier. Pate slapped Indiana with a very respectable 9 on his “confidence scale” of winning the Big Ten in 2026, but a 9 isn’t a 10, which was the confidence scale number he handed Oregon and Ohio State for this fall. Both conference behemoths will be led by returning star quarterbacks in Dante Moore and Julian Sayin, respectively.
Pate gushed about Oregon’s overall roster, and he believes Ohio State can overcome a tough schedule (on paper, at least).
If Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers needed any sort of bulletin board material to motivate them this spring, Pate surely provided some with his springtime salvo.
4. Curt Cignetti to show at Indy he’s already Hoosier State royalty
The meteoric rise of Indiana football has run parallel to that of Cignetti’s, because in exactly 2 seasons the brash mad scientist has transformed Hoosiers football from afterthought to amazing. A Playoff team in 2024, a national championship team in 2025 and, in the spring of 2026, a treasured spot behind the wheel in the honorary pace car at the Indianapolis 500.
Cignetti has floored it from 0 to 60 miles per hour in driving Indiana to unimaginable heights, and on May 24 he’ll drive a Chevrolet Corvette ZRIX around the iconic oval to the adulation of Hoosier Nation, his spot in the state’s sports pantheon secured in basically the snap of a finger.
That’s what happens when you lead what was the losingest FBS program in history on a 16-0 championship crusade. Of course, the second that green flag sets the 33-car Indy field in motion, Cignetti can resume thinking about how he’s going to get Josh Hoover to unleash bloody hell on Big Ten defenses this fall.
5. Matt Leinart speaks out on unretiring his No. 11 USC jersey
Yes, the legendary Trojans quarterback never actually played in the Big Ten, because USC’s conference transition was still many years away. But we bring up Leinart because the present-day issue with the former lefty gunslinger certainly involves the Big Ten. That’s because Leinart was recently asked if he would ever let another Trojan player wear his retired No. 11 jersey. USC’s charming tradition of retiring the numbers of its Heisman Trophy winners includes Leinart, who captured the Heisman in 2004. When the school recently asked Leinart to give his permission to allow another player to wear No. 11, he made his stance on the touchy matter known in full blast.
“There’s been multiple times where people at USC have asked me if I would un-retire my jersey for some 5-star prospect. And do you want to know what I told those guys, straight up? I am never going to un-retire my jersey for some random dude who, by the way, now could wear No. 11 and transfer after a year,” Leinart said.
The only exceptions Leinart said he’d ever make are for his son, Cole, who’s at SMU right now, so that’s kind of a moot point, or for “two of my boys, if they end up going to USC and playing football. That is it,” he said.
In other words, if it’s anybody else, please stop asking.
6. Ohio State talent rules top of Mel Kiper Jr.’s recent mock draft
That football factory in Columbus has annually become a certifiable pipeline to the NFL, and that fact is shown off every spring at the NFL Draft. So, it should come as no shock that legendary ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. has Ohio State talent all over the top of his recent mock draft. But this particular Kiper mock edition for the draft that’s now about 3 weeks away in Pittsburgh takes the whole Ohio State-to-NFL phenomenon to a new extreme.
Because Kiper had — count ’em — 4 Buckeyes going in his top 8 picks, which would be incredible if it actually happens. Kiper’s insane run of Ohio State talent starts, at least in this mock edition, at the No. 3 spot, with the Arizona Cardinals grabbing former Buckeyes outside linebacker Arvell Reese. Two spots later, Kiper has safety sensation Caleb Downs, who starred at both Alabama and Ohio State, going to the New York Giants. Then he has another NFC East team, the Washington Commanders, snatching linebacker Sonny Styles at No. 7, followed by the New Orleans Saints drafting wideout Carnell Tate with the 8th pick.
Could 4 Ohio State players actually go in the top 8? It would be a ridiculous domination of the very top of the draft by 1 program, but that pigskin paradise in Columbus does the NFL Draft the way it hates Michigan — with full-throttle intensity and full-blown representation.
7. Can Matt Rhule finally get things rolling in Lincoln?
Nebraska, a perennial college football powerhouse for decades and decades, has become an afterthought in the sport, and it’s up to Matt Rhule to finally fix that. Can he? Well, Rhule isn’t exactly off to a great start in Lincoln in his first 3 years, never finishing with better than a 7-6 record. He’s 19-19 overall since taking over in 2023 and that 10-17 Big Ten record is an eye-sore of the worst kind.
Did we mention yet that Nebraska lost starting quarterback Dylan Raiola, who transferred to Big Ten rival Oregon? It won’t be easy for Rhule to fully turn things around in Lincoln, never mind get the program back to the prominence it enjoyed for seemingly forever under Tom Osborne. Rhule would seem to be arriving at his reckoning, and ESPN analyst Mark Schlabach knows it, labeling him recently as the coach in college football with the most to prove going into the 2026 season.
Schlabach wrote in a recent ESPN offseason breakdown, in part: “Matt Rhule signed a two-year contract extension with Nebraska through the 2032 season, so it’s not like he’s on the hot seat. But after his teams went 19-19 in his first three seasons, it’s time for Nebraska to start showing some life. The Cornhuskers haven’t won 10 games or more in a season since 2012. They’ve lost six games or more in eight of the past nine.”
Rhule’s reworked contract would seem to indicate he’s safe for a while but, really, is he with another mediocre season in 2026?
8. Notable analyst thinks USC will finally be a Playoff team
In a recent way-too-early breakdown by ESPN published smack in the middle of March, analysts were asked to select a non-Playoff team from 2025 that they expected to make the Playoff in 2026. Heather Dinich didn’t flinch in calling out USC as the team that’ll make that big jump this fall, as a demanding Trojans fan base gets more restless with Lincoln Riley. With a top recruiting class arriving in Los Angeles and a splash of a defensive coordinator hire in Gary Patterson, Riley really, really needs to make the Playoff this year.
USC hung around in Playoff contention last fall until late November, when it got blitzed at Oregon. Dinich believes the Trojans will finally cross that threshold under Riley in 2026, writing in part: “With quarterback Jayden Maiava returning, along with all five starting offensive linemen and running back King Miller, the offense has the potential to be potent. Riley lured in the No. 1 recruiting class and also has help coming from the transfer portal. If he can upgrade the defense, which allowed 23 points per game last year, USC should be a Playoff team.”
That last part is where Patterson comes in. The longtime TCU head coach who went 181-79 in a little over 2 decades in Fort Worth could just be the final piece toward a Playoff berth that’s been a long time coming for a program used to competing for national championships. Dinich believes it finally happens in 2026.
9. Is Penn State poised for a big rebound this season?
After getting within 2 victories of its first national title since 1986 only a year earlier, it all unraveled in State College in 2025. That preseason No. 2 ranking in the AP Poll was fool’s gold, and when the Nittany Lions couldn’t get out of their own way early, James Franklin paid the price. After years of many wins but not many big wins, it was time for a change, and Penn State went a little outside the box in hiring Matt Campbell away from Iowa State to replace Franklin.
As we start the leadup to the 2026 season, guess who’s really high on the Nittany Lions? It’s ESPN analyst Mark Schlabach, who labeled Penn State as the team in college football that will show the greatest improvement from last year.
Schlabach wrote in a recent ESPN look-ahead piece, in part: “Penn State was finally able to lure Matt Campbell away from Iowa State, and he could be poised for a big turnaround in Happy Valley. The Nittany Lions won their last four games to salvage a 7-6 campaign in 2025. … Campbell brought in 39 transfers, including two dozen from Iowa State. … The Nittany Lions don’t play Indiana, Ohio State or Oregon in the regular season, so a 10-win season isn’t out of the question.”
We’ll find out this fall if that pipeline from Ames to State College pays immediate dividends, with Franklin now at Virginia Tech and without a glossy preseason ranking weighing the program down.
10. Can there be multiple Playoff teams from the Pacific Northwest?
Dante Moore’s decision to return to Oregon alone makes the Ducks a prime contender to return to the Playoff after their run to the semifinals last season. Maybe 2026 is finally Oregon’s year to go the distance. But what about the Ducks’ Pacific Northwest neighbor to the north? Washington also has its starting QB back in the fold this year, albeit after a very brief, very messy fiasco during which Demond Williams Jr. chose to transfer before ultimately choosing to return to Seattle for the 2026 season.
Williams spoke to reporters this offseason about getting “bad advice” and that he’s “super blessed” to be back at Washington, where he threw for over 3,000 yards and 25 touchdowns while rushing for over 600 yards last season. With Williams returning after all and with Jedd Fisch’s extensive offensive pedigree, perhaps Washington can build enough on a 9-win season in 2025 to contend for a Playoff spot?
CBS Sports’ Cody Nagel believes the Huskies can. In fact, Nagel wrote in a recent predictions piece for the 2026 season that he sees Washington being a Playoff team. Nagel’s bold prediction for the 2026 Washington Huskies? “Demond Williams Jr. makes up for his portal misstep, leads Huskies to CFP.”
Incidentally, Nagel also predicts that Oregon will finally win that first-ever national championship, so it might just be a thriller of a college football season up in the Pacific Northwest.
Will Oregon win it all? The Ducks currently have a 9% chance, per Kalshi:
