2025/26 School Year National Champions
Football - Indiana
Field Hockey - Northwestern
Men’s Soccer - Washington
Wrestling - Pann State
Men’s Basketball - Michigan
Women’s Basketball - UCLA
Women’s Hockey - Wisconsin
Florida State won Women’s Soccer and Denver beatWisconsin in the Men’s hockey championship. Where did the mighty SEC disappear to?
Well, when you create a system where you keep all the resources…..
Their resources don’t exceed the SEC by much.
No SEC teams play field hockey or ice hockey, and the SEC doesn’t sponsor men’s soccer or wrestling (2 teams play in other conferences for each). And I think SEC fans do deeply care about baseball which they’re still doing fine in.
So it’s really just FB and MBB. I think there’s some appeal to the idea that a bunch of SEC car dealer boosters didn’t realize the Big Ten was going to have all of the money if they legalized bag men, but I don’t know that I’m sold on it yet.
I don’t think the B1G’s resources for sports are all that much more than the SEC. On the academic side, sure. It’s not even close, but for sports, the SEC will find the money to be competitive in anything that matters more to them.
It’s more than sports though, right now upper-tier flagship universities are alternating roles as colleges, vocational schools, hospitals, research institutes, hedge funds, real estate/foodservice empires, luxury spas, and minor league sports teams. The SEC and its schools have narrowed the gap as the south has grown, but it’s hard to make up such a big gap in wealth and influence built over generations over a short period.
Since everyone is picking up this, let’s change the statement to “one of 2 conferences along with SEC that keep all the resources “.