ESPN’s College Gameday snubs undefeated Big Ten Championship for SEC title game

The coming clash between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana at Saturday’s Big Ten Football Championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, is set to be the first conference championship meeting of the top two teams in the AP Poll in over a decade.

For the first time, that matchup won’t involve the SEC. Both previous instances came in 2009 and 2008, both at the SEC Championship and both involving matchups between Alabama and Florida.

The Buckeyes and Hoosiers enter Saturday’s contest with identical 12-0 records and each have one of the top two betting favorites for the Heisman Trophy on their respective rosters: For Ohio State, it’s quarterback Julian Sayin and for Indiana it’s fellow signal caller Fernando Mendoza.

It’s poised to be the most stacked Big Ten title game in quite some time. In spite of this, ESPN’s wildly popular College Gameday program, the sport’s premier pregame show, has opted to head down to Atlanta for the SEC Championship instead.

That game will feature a matchup between 10-2 No. 10 Alabama and 11-1 No. 4 Georgia, the fifth time since 2010 that the league’s title game has been a matchup between the two and a rematch of a September 27th game in Athens, Georgia that ended in a 24-21 victory for the Crimson Tide.

This season marks College Gameday’s third consecutive appearance at the SEC Championship in Atlanta. The last time the program opted for another conference was the 2022 Big 12 Championship between TCU and Kansas State. College Gameday hasn’t appeared at the Big Ten’s title game since 2016.

ESPN agreed to terms on a 10-year media rights deal with the SEC beginning in 2024-25, with the broadcaster being the exclusive rights holder for SEC football. The network also holds the broadcasting rights for the College Football Playoff.