Shannon Sharpe pushes back on Paul Finebaum claim that the Big Ten owns college football

ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum declared Tuesday morning that the Big Ten “owns college football” after Ohio State beat Notre Dame Monday night for the league’s second straight national title.

Shannon Sharpe of ESPN pushed back on that claim, stating that in his mind, the SEC is still king. Sharpe needs to see more from the Big Ten before he is ready to declare it as the best conference in the sport.

“Well, I’m going to need to see more than back-to-back. Because the SEC won 13 in 20 seasons,” Shannon Sharpe said. “If you remember, Georgia just went back-to-back just two years ago. And before them it was Alabama. So I’m going to need to see more than two before I proclaim the Big Ten.

“Now yes, they should celebrate. They celebrated last year. They’re celebrating again this year. But I’m going to need to see more than back-to-back championships from the Big Ten before I say the Big Ten is now the dominant, preeminent conference in college football.”

As Shannon Sharpe said, yes Ohio State and Michigan have won the past two national titles, but before that the SEC won four in a row. And overall, the SEC has still won 13 of the past 19 national titles.

Sharpe added that he also believes the SEC will have more players drafted this year than the Big Ten, which in his mind will prove that the SEC is still better.

“I’ve seen Alabama and the LSUs and the Auburns and all these other teams, I’ve seen the SEC win far too many,” Sharpe said. “But guess what, we’ll check out come draft time. We’ll see where the most players come from, and that’ll tell us.”

Stephen A. Smith and Dan Orlovsky said on First Take that they believe the Big Ten has an advantage now in recruiting because of how much money it has to spend. They both argued that the Big Ten has surpassed the SEC. But Sharpe believes SEC teams will recruit just fine moving forward.

“We know Kirby can recruit, now,” he said. “Now whether or not he has the bags like Ohio State, or some of these other schools, we know Kirby can recruit. That’s not going to be an issue recruiting. But at the end of the day, it’s going to come down to your quarterback. You’ve gotta have a quarterback. Now if I’m Quinn Ewers I’m like, ‘Georgia, how much NIL money y’all got?'”