Big Ten proves Mizzou more SEC than Hogs fans give credit

 This will be a hard one for fans across the SEC to swallow, but apparently everyone in the footprint outside the "Show Me State" owes Eli Drinkwitz and Mizzou an apology.

For the past few years, especially heading into this upcoming season, the Tigers have been raked over the coals by fellow SEC programs for having such a soft football schedule. The fans of so many schools, including Arkansas, have begun many a sentence with the words "Well, if we had Missouri's schedule..."

After all, how pathetic and shameful must it be to look at the schedule and see only four Top 25 teams on the ledger and want people to take themselves seriously as a playoff contender. A true SEC team has six Top 25 teams on the schedule as a show of pride and proof a spot was earned if given.

To add a little pop to the argument, it was time to bring in the Big Ten, the other half of college football's power structure and, if we're being honest, Missouri's more natural fit. There was snow on the ground during football season and "soda pop" for sale in the concession stands when Arkansas played the Tigers, so there's no argument on that front.

However, as frowned upon as the four Top 25 games is within the SEC, apparently in that regard, Mizzou is a little more SEC than Big Ten. With all the barking the Big Ten has done over the past couple of years about how the SEC needs to add a ninth conference game to make things more even on the playoff front, there was no doubt Big Ten schedules would be loaded with five to seven Top 25 games, just like the SEC.

That was far from the case. With a season of evidence presented, it appears teams will need at least 10 wins to squeeze into the playoffs.

What that means is Missouri, along with every team in the SEC, will have to post multiple Top 25 wins to make the portion of the postseason that matters. That's not the case, it would seem, for Big Ten schools.

The discrepancy is massive. For instance, Florida must win at least five Top 25 games to get into the playoffs with seven shots at doing so.

Meanwhile, there is a chance Michigan claims one of the mid-level playoff spots without a single win over a Top 25 team. The Wolverines only have one such game against a Big Ten opponent — No. 3 Ohio State to close the season.

Their only other Top 25 game is against No. 18 Oklahoma in "The Big House" the first weekend of September. It's easy to picture the Wolverines dropping a close one to the Sooners, then going undefeated while feasting on unranked opponents all the way to the final week of the season.

By that point, they'll be locked into the playoffs already with no quality wins to show for it. Meanwhile, if the Razorbacks want to sneak in the back door to one of the final playoff slots, the Hogs are going to need to take down at least four, probably five, Top 25 teams.

So , while Missouri takes all kinds of flack for facing only four Top 25 teams and is borderline ostracized in SEC football for doing so, the Big Ten features 11 teams that play three or fewer, including five that only play a pair of ranked teams.

Included in that group are Oregon, Illinois and Michigan, three teams that are 2025 playoff favorites. Well, of course they are if the road is that easy.

You have to wonder if Sam Pittman would allow his team to accept the bid if Arkansas made it into the playoffs without any wins over a ranked team. One thing that no longer needs to be pondered is the Big Ten's grumbling about the SEC's conference and non-conference schedules.

The SEC doesn't need to add an extra conference game. The Big Ten needs to find a way to add two or three Top 25 games to its schedules.

What that league is running out there right now is embarrassing. Like, less effort to challenge themselves than Missouri level embarrassing.

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