Modern Big Ten supremacy at stake in the Rose Bowl between Ohio State and Oregon

A little more than five months ago, during the third week of July, the opening soliloquy for Oregon head coach Dan Lanning at Big Ten Football Media Days in Indianapolis lasted nearly nine minutes.

It began with a customary expression of gratitude to conference commissioner Tony Petitti, who welcomed the Ducks to their new league earlier this year, and included an overview of the Lanning family’s summer: a family vacation to Missouri , a stint at church camp for his three kids, a wife “ready to send me back to work” after too much time together. He detailed the tragic loss of former cornerback Khyree Jackson in a car accident that rocked the program, a coaching retreat for his staff in Central Oregon and some of his team’s off-field efforts to strengthen the culture, from reading Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” to working with Sleep in Heavenly Peace and providing over 200 beds for children in need.

For some of the reporters in attendance at Lucas Oil Stadium that morning, and for the television audience watching live on the Big Ten Network, this was a formal introduction to a coach who would quickly become one of the conference’s leading lights. .

Oregon was set to enter the 2024 season ranked No. 3 in both the AP Top 25 Poll and the AFCA Coaches Poll, the highest of any Big Ten team not named Ohio State, and that meant Lanning assumed much higher expectations than his counterparts at USC. , UCLA and Washington: the other three exiles from a crumbling Pac-12. Lanning concluded his opening remarks by building on everything Oregon already claims to be and the new heights it hopes to reach.

“What should the Big Ten know about Oregon?” Lanning asked rhetorically. “We are very different… in many ways… We are very different when it comes to the shirts we wear or the facilities we are in. We are innovative. We have always been at the forefront of everything we do… and we are grateful for the opportunity to compete in the Big Ten.”

Immediately, Oregon positioned itself as a willing challenger to the conference’s old guard, to schools like Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State that have ruled the Big Ten for so long. The blue blood that was bestowed on those programs in the previous century (and that persists to varying degrees into the present) is a much fresher experience for the Ducks. They had never won 10 games in a season until former coach Mike Bellotti did it in 2000, but they have now done it 12 times in the last 17 years, including three in a row under Lanning. Although Oregon is still seeking the first national title in school history, its rematch in the Rose Bowl next week against Ohio State, a team it already beat in mid-October, looks a lot like a battle for modern supremacy of the Big Ten between the two teams. with larger financial war chests than anyone else in the league.

A fascination for the rest of the conference with Oregon’s financial prowess, much of which is backed by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who has reportedly donated more than $1 billion to his alma mater and is a driving force behind the Ducks’ aggressive NIL efforts. – became increasingly clear on press days. Lanning and the select players who joined him in Indianapolis faced question after question from writers chronicling other teams about the monetary benefits of playing in Oregon. There was even a joke from first-year UCLA head coach DeShaun Foster about how the Bruins will meet the revenue sharing limits expected to accompany the impending deal between House and NCAA, while the Ducks have what appears to be an inexhaustible source of cash. at his disposal. The breadth of the monetary debate made it clear that Oregon was the Big Ten’s shiny new toy, even if the inquiries were tinged with envy.

“With the NIL side of things,” said quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who transferred from Oklahoma after the 2023 campaign, “I think people are a little more, I wouldn’t say jealous, but there are resources in the that everyone has a training room, weight room, locker room, things they can show off, uniforms. It’s a little different with NIL, and you either have it or you don’t.

“It’s just the new day and age of college football. You’re either playing catch-up or you’re taking advantage of it, and hopefully you’re not on the wrong side.”

The combination of strong financial backing from Oregon’s Division Street collective and a relentless approach to roster construction by Lanning has positioned the Ducks as possibly the only team in the Big Ten capable of competing with Ohio State in acquiring players. All three of Lanning’s recruiting classes improved from 13th nationally in 2022 to ninth nationally in 2023 and third nationally in 2024, two spots ahead of the Buckeyes. It was the first time anyone other than Ohio State finished atop the conference’s recruiting hierarchy since Michigan did so under former coach Jim Harbaugh in 2019 and just the second time that happened since 247Sports began ranking the team in 2010.

Oregon’s current recruiting class, which won’t be completed until February, is ranked fifth nationally, one spot behind the Buckeyes, but claims the highest average prospect rating (93.85) of any team in the country. with nine signatories among the top 131. players in general. That includes five-star cornerback Na’eem Offord (No. 10 overall, No. 3 CB) from Birmingham, Alabama, whom the Ducks traded from Ohio State. Offord became the second top prospect in as many classes to move from Ohio State to Oregon, following the path of four-star wide receiver Jeremiah McClellan (No. 65 overall, No. 14 WR) in the 2024 cycle. No player committed to the Ducks has broken free and chosen the Buckeyes since Lanning arrived three years ago.

“When we evaluate the talent that can come here and help us,” Lanning said at a press conference earlier this week, ” [we want to know] Are you looking for the best opportunity, or are you looking for the easiest or most convenient opportunity? In our program we talk about sacrifice. “Sometimes you sacrifice distance for the right spot, the right fit, the right spot you’re going to develop, and we’ve had a lot of success doing that.”

Although Ohio State still narrowly leads Oregon in high school recruiting, what head coach Ryan Day refers to as the “foundation” of his program, the opposite has happened in the transfer portal: a newer tool in list building and that Lanning and the Ducks consume it quite liberally. After compiling the 23rd-best transfer total in the country in Lanning’s first offseason, Oregon shot up the portal rankings to ninth place in 2023 and second place in 2024, with the most recent group led by impact players like quarterback (Gabriel), cornerback (Washington’s Jabbar Muhammad), defensive line (Michigan State’s Derrick Harmon and Houston’s Jamaree Caldwell), wide receiver (Texas A&M’s Evan Stewart) and kicker (Atticus Sappington of Oregon State), among others. The portal is usually where money talks the most.

For Ohio State, however, it wasn’t until last offseason that Day put together a transfer class ranked in the top 25 nationally, as the program was slower to come to terms with the portal’s endless bidding wars and general absence of regulation. But the Buckeyes made the biggest splash in the sport in 2024 by signing a handful of elite players, led by former Alabama safety Caleb Downs (No. 1 transfer, No. 1 S), the former Alabama quarterback Julian Sayin (No. 6 transfer, No. 1 QB), former Ole Miss running back Quinshon Judkins (No. 9 transfer, No. 1 RB), former Kansas State quarterback Will Howard (No. 41 transfer, No. 7 QB RB) and former Alabama center Seth McLaughlin (No. 110 transfer, No. 4 LIO). In total, Ohio State’s incoming transfers ranked as the ninth-best group nationally with the highest average prospect score (92.86) of any program.

“There [has] There has been a lot of talk about our team this year. [and] “There’s been a lot of talk about the NIL conversation,” Day said at a news conference earlier this week. “But the majority of this team are guys who decided to come back, not guys who decided to come to Ohio State.” [from the transfer portal]. We certainly added some important pieces in the portal, and that was very important for our team and those guys have been great members of our team and quickly understood what it means to be Buckeyes. But to have that stability, I think you have to recruit high school players, tell them exactly what it’s going to be like. [like in college]and then follow up and treat them exactly the same way you recruited them in the process.”

The overwhelming success of both programs in the roster-building phase of college football helped explain the frenetic excitement surrounding their regular-season matchup at Autzen Stadium on Oct. 12, a game the Ducks ultimately won, 32-31. . At the time, many believed they were previewing this year’s Big Ten Championship Game, with Oregon and Ohio State the favorites to return to Lucas Oil Stadium in early December. The former kept its end of the bargain by advancing undefeated in the conference. The latter was defeated by Michigan in the regular season finale, sending Penn State to Indianapolis.

Now their rematch will take place on a much grander stage: the College Football Playoff quarterfinals, with modern Big Ten supremacy and the path to a national championship on the line.

“We’re very excited to be able to play a great opponent in Ohio State,” Lanning said. “I think it’s a great representation of what the Big Ten is capable of doing, to have these two teams have the opportunity to face off in ‘The Granddaddy of Them All.'”

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. follow him on @Michael_Cohen13.

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