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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
INDIANAPOLIS — When new Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti meets with the league’s football coaches, the conversation inevitably steers toward one important but elusive goal: national championships.
The Big Ten hasn’t won a championship since 2014, the inaugural season of the College Football Playoff, when Ohio State beat Oregon. Ohio State is the only Big Ten team to win or play for a national title in both the CFP and BCS eras. Despite record revenues, the league has struggled to build championship-level depth, although both Ohio State and Michigan reached the CFP last year.
“I know when I speak to coaches, we talk about winning national championships,” Petitti told ESPN on Wednesday. “What do we need to do in the conference office to [help teams] win national championships? That’s what they want the support on. They want that sense of reinforcement that we believe that’s the goal. It doesn’t take away from the academic, athletic mission, all the things that we talk about that are important, but we can do both.
“The coaches expect the conference office to lead.”
Petitti is excited about the expansion of the CFP to 12 teams beginning in 2024, when the Big Ten welcomes new members USC and UCLA. He looks forward to having playoff games on Big Ten campuses, and he thinks the expanded CFP will “very quickly become in the top one or two most dominant events in the country.”
“We expect to go deep in terms of teams participating in the CFP numbers, and we expect to go deep and win national championships,” said Petitti, hired in April. “The format that we that was chosen puts us in a really great position.”
Petitti said the Big Ten staff will be proactive in advocating for CFP inclusion, pointing to the league’s nine-game schedule and a flexible format designed to maximize rotation and compelling matchups. He said the league’s new media rights deal, which welcomes CBS and NBC alongside Fox and Big Ten Network, will be “a tremendous asset” in showcasing the Big Ten’s product throughout fall Saturdays. Petitti added that he never had concern about completing the longform media agreement, despite some challenges he inherited shortly after being hired.
He said there has been “no discussion” about moving away from a nine-game conference schedule, which the Big Ten has used since 2017.
“You’re comparing 9-3 and 10-2, different leagues, different schedules, different times of year, different times when you may have lost, early, late, all those things get compared,” Petitti said. “It’s the job of the conference to make sure we’re putting the best case forward for our members, and scheduling is one of those factors that we have to use to point out potentially some of the differences in what we do.”
Big Ten coaches, who faced some communication challenges with Petitti’s predecessor, Kevin Warren, especially surrounding the 2020 season, have been pleased with the new commissioner’s approach.
“He’s been great so far to work with,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said of Petitti. “It seems like what he says he’s going to do, he’s going to do. I look forward to having more of those conversation. There’s a lot coming at him right now, and he’s trying to figure it out.
“His long-term goals all look in line with what we need as a conference. His communication has been good.”
Petitti also told ESPN the Big Ten isn’t currently focused on adding more members beyond USC and UCLA in 2024. He will keep monitoring potential realignment in other leagues to keep the league’s presidents and chancellors informed.
“There’s a flow of information, keeping people updated on what’s going on, how we see the landscape, trying to help predict what we think will be next,” he said. “But ultimately, that’s different than understanding that that requires us to take any action at all. It just depends.”
