Why the Big Ten is the big winner of college football so far

Week 1 of college football can only reveal so much about teams. While some Power Four teams challenge a fellow Power Four program, many open the season with a cupcake, paid thousands of dollars to suffer a beatdown by the big boys. A season can’t be won or lost in Week 1, but it can pay dividends moving forward. For the Big Ten, it did just that.

All 18 teams played and 17 won — the highest win percentage of the Power Four conferences. Regular-season wins in college football have always mattered more than any other sport and an expanded College Football Playoff hasn’t changed that. The five highest-ranked conference champions and seven at-large teams will qualify for the playoff. With seven at-large bids up for grabs, the CFP committee will look at teams’ complete resumes, including who they beat in nonconference games. When judging which conferences are stronger than others, it will matter how nonconference matchups played out.

And that’s why the Big Ten is sitting pretty. USC’s thrilling win over LSU will matter down the line, as will Penn State’s win at West Virginia. Minnesota, the lone Big Ten to lose, fell at home against North Carolina, but the ACC has already taken its fair share of hits with Virginia Tech losing to Vanderbilt, Stanford losing to TCU and Clemson putting up little resistance against No. 1 Georgia.

The power struggle that is the Big Ten and SEC will take center stage Saturday as No. 10 Michigan hosts No. 3 Texas. It is the first time the conferences will meet this season with additional matchups in Week 3 when Alabama travels to Wisconsin and in Week 4 when UCLA visits LSU. These games are a measuring stick of how the leagues stack up against each other. It’s likely that Wisconsin and UCLA will lose their respective matchups, making Saturday’s game in Ann Arbor all the more important for Michigan and the Big Ten.