Pipe down, SEC: The Big Ten has a strength-of-schedule argument now (says USA Today’s Matt Hayes)

Early Break – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK · Aug 21, 2026 · 17m

-That was the headline from Matt Hayes’ recent column for USA Today, saying that the SEC scoffs at Ohio State’s “tough schedule” by

mocking the likes of Illinois and Iowa being ‘tough’ games---how the SEC fans conveniently forget that Iowa rolled Vanderbilt last year

in a bowl game and Illinois has beaten South Carolina and Tennessee in back-to-back years in the postseason

-No one says the SEC isn’t tough---it certainly is and still might be a tougher conference overall than the B1G---but it’s not something

that is just a given like it was in years past. The B1G has 8 teams ranked in the…