Purdue football coach Barry Odom discusses non-conference scheduling
A lot of talk at Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas has centered around non-conference scheduling. Purdue coach Barry Odom provided his philosophy.
This week, college football’s time-honored tradition of talking season continued with the Big Ten and ACC staging their media days.
At both events, however, it was another conference that wedged its way into news conferences and media breakout sessions.
When not gushing about their own teams or touting their own conferences, several coaches turned their gaze to the SEC.
SMU’s Rhett Lashlee described the league as “top-heavy” and said it lacked depth, pointing to how only six teams have won the league since 1964 (technically, it’s seven). Hours later, when asked about his team canceling a home-and-home series with Virginia, Indiana’s Curt Cignetti took a jab at the SEC, claiming the Hoosiers were simply adopting an “SEC scheduling philosophy” by putting Group of Five and FCS opponents on their slate.
It wasn’t all quite so inflammatory.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti presented a vision for College Football Playoff expansion that differed from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s preferred model. Penn State’s James Franklin, a former SEC head coach, critiqued the scheduling disparity between leagues like the Big Ten, with nine conference games, and the SEC, with eight, noting that “everybody should be playing the same number of conference games.” Washington’s Jedd Fisch went one step further, taking aim at much of the SEC staging late-season games against FCS foes.
“The NFL doesn’t play the CFL in the middle of the season,” he said on July 23 at Big Ten media days.
At least some…
Source link : https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/college/SEC/2025/07/24/sec-football-big-ten-acc-media-days-curt-cignetti-rhett-lashlee/85364993007/
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Publish date : 2025-07-24 21:38:00
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