Let me take you to the intersection of dumb and dumber, and the undoing of a once proud conference of legends and leaders.
There, standing proudly in the middle of it all, is Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and his reported 28-team College Football Playoff idea.
And by idea, I mean the Big Ten’s postseason desire specifically leaked to gauge the winds of change.
This is where we are with the oldest conference in college football, the one-time collection of Midwest schools and foundational stability of the sport that not long ago held itself above the fray of the ever-changing whims of public opinion and stayed the course.
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But legends and leaders, everyone, has become dumb and dumber.
The metamorphosis began on a dreary, confusing day in the summer of 2020 when the world was coping with something called COVID-19. It was then, on a conference call with the other power conferences commissioners, where the seeds of this strange undoing blossomed.
The commissioners were attempting to figure out a non-conference schedule for the pandemic season, when then-Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren interrupted the conversation and declared, “We’re the Big Ten, we lead, we don’t follow” — and hung up.
From that moment forward, the moves made by the Big Ten – a group of schools former legendary commissioner Jim Delany once called the “conscience of college sports” – fundamentally and profoundly altered amateur sports.
It wasn’t long after the failed conference call that Warren canceled the fall season for the Big Ten, and pitched the idea of spring football and playing two seasons in nine months. Maybe the dumbest idea ever.
Stick a pin in that, people. We’ll get back to the dumbest of dumb.
In that same pandemic season, after the Big Ten was forced into playing in the fall because everyone else found a way to play through the obstacles, it “returned to play” with the rule that all teams had to play six games to be eligible for the Big Ten championship game (and by proxy, the CFP).
Until, that is, it became clear that undefeated Ohio State would only play five games. Then the rules were readjusted midstream, and lowly Indiana got jobbed when the path was cleared for the blue blood Buckeyes.
But it wasn’t until Texas and Oklahoma decided in 2021 to leave the Big 12 for the SEC that dumb officially hit the fan in the Big Ten. That singular move began a cavalcade of dumb that tsunami’ed over more than a century of smart, measured decision-making.
Warren convinced the Pac-12 (which never did anything without big brother’s stamp of approval) and the ACC that the SEC was the death of college sports, and the three power conferences needed to band together in an “Alliance” of like minds and goals for the future. And to stop the SEC at all cost.
Less than a year later, Warren stabbed his “partners” in the back by inviting Southern California and UCLA to join the Big Ten, thereby completely destabilizing the Pac-12 and, after the dominoes of change began to fall, every other conference in college football.
The ink was barely dry on that dumb when the Big Ten realized two important things: travel was going to be extremely difficult (still is), and USC and UCLA needed partners on the West Coast. So Oregon and Washington were invited, which eventually led to Stanford and California moving to the ACC — a move rivaling all for dumbest of dumb.
Two years later, with Petitti new on the job and the SEC in the middle of yet another championship run, the Big Ten decided to essentially look the other way on Michigan’s illegal advanced scouting scheme.
You want dumb? Check out this dumb: Michigan, already being investigated by the NCAA for illegal contact with players during the pandemic season, had a second NCAA investigation opened in the middle of the 2023 season — this time for the advanced scouting scheme.
But instead of suspending Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh for the season because he and the program were repeat offenders, Petitti decided a three-game suspension would suffice for a coach and a team that had the talent to win it all.
I know this is going to shock you, but Michigan won the whole damn thing.
Fast forward to last month, and the Big Ten is coming off back-to-back national championship seasons. The conference hasn’t been this strong in decades, and SEC coaches are begging to play non-conference games against Big Ten schools.
So what does Petitti do? Because of scheduling conflicts in Indianapolis, he moves Big Ten media days to Las Vegas.
Without the swooning Ohio State media hoard and wall-to-wall coverage from the Big Ten Network, it was a barren wasteland of opportunity. What should have been a time for the Big Ten to walk tall, stick out its chest and stand above everyone else in college football, devolved into tumbleweeds in the desert.
There was more energy on the fake beach, a football field away at Mandalay Bay resort.
This leads us all the way back to the dumbest of dumb: the Big Ten’s proposed super duper, extra large CFP. Not to be confused with another dumb idea: the 4-2-1-3 CFP model that the Big Ten, and only the Big Ten, wants for the new CFP contract in 2026.
You remember that one: the Big Ten and SEC get four automatic spots in the 16-team field, and get the opportunity to earn one or more of the three at-large selections.
In a 28-team model, the Big Ten and SEC would each get seven automatic bids, and the ACC and Big 12 five. Because nothing says battling for the postseason quite like eight-win Louisville and Baylor reaching the dance.
Or more to the point: five-loss Michigan with an automatic pass to the CFP.
“Formats that increase the discretion and role of the CFP Selection Committee,” Petitti said last month at Big Ten media days, “Will have a difficult time getting support from the Big Ten.”
We’re the Big Ten. We lead, we don’t follow.
All the way to the intersection of dumb and dumber.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
