There’s a conference debate in college football that feels like it’s been dragging on for years. Which league is better, the SEC or the Big Ten? That’s the one thing that Michigan and Michigan State fans always agree on and the past three national champs prove that.
The Big Ten has won three straight national titles with Michigan winning* (don’t mind the asterisk) in 2023, Ohio State following that up in 2024 with a championship, and then Indiana coming out of nowhere under Curt Cignetti to win it all in 2025. It’s hard for the SEC to argue that they have a better conference when the national titles over the past three years speak for themselves.
But one former Michigan State assistant coach believes that the conversation shouldn’t be the Big Ten vs. the SEC. No, he believes that it should be the ACC vs. the SEC.
I’m not joking.
Former Michigan State defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi, who’s been the head coach of Pitt for about a decade now, went on a radio show during ACC Media Days to talk about his feelings about the conference debate. He laughed off the notion that the Big Ten is the best, saying that he felt this way a decade ago when he left Michigan State for Pitt: the ACC is better.
And he said it with a straight face. He believes that the ACC is better than the Big Ten… in football.
Note: Narduzzi starts talking about the conferences at around the 3:02 mark.
Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi isn't backing down.
— 680 The Fan (@680TheFan) July 17, 2026
"This conference is better. It's better than the Big Ten." @JohnMichaelsU @Pitt_FB pic.twitter.com/B6CHlgRcv2
See I’ve always thought Narduzzi was a likeable guy at Michigan State. He had sort of an “I don’t care what anyone thinks” attitude and he’s clearly carried that over to his “new” job at Pittsburgh, but it’s not as likeable when you’re on the opposite side of all of his takes.
Narduzzi made similar comments around the time of the 2021 Peach Bowl when Kenny Pickett sat out, making a claim that the Panthers lost because they didn’t have their QB1. Meanwhile, Mel Tucker didn’t say a word despite not having the Doak Walker Award winner in the backfield for that game.
I’m starting to think Narduzzi expects everyone to take his word for things without doing any research, but an ACC-Big Ten Challenge in football would not go the way he expects.
How would an ACC-Big Ten Challenge look?
Based solely on standings from the 2025 season, he’s how the Big Ten-ACC matchups would look:
Note: Sorry, Purdue, you get excluded because ACC football has 17 teams and you went winless last year.
- Indiana vs. Duke
- Ohio State vs. Virginia
- Oregon vs. Miami
- Michigan vs. Georgia Tech
- USC vs. SMU
- Iowa vs. Pitt
- Illinois vs. Louisville
- Minnesota vs. Wake Forest
- Washington vs. NC State
- Nebraska vs. Cal
- Northwestern vs. Clemson
- Penn State vs. Stanford
- UCLA vs. Florida State
- Rutgers vs. Virginia Tech
- Wisconsin vs. North Carolina
- Maryland vs. Boston College
- Michigan State vs. Syracuse
If I’m making serious predictions here, the Big Ten wins at least eight of those top 10 matchups and the bottom seven are pretty evenly split. That means that the Big Ten would likely go 11-6 at worst but likely 12-5 if this were a legitimate challenge every year.
And I’m starting to think it should be.
The only way it would be even semi-fair is if the ACC were allowed to pick up Notre Dame to face a team like Michigan or Oregon in that top four.
Narduzzi is expecting us all to believe that the ACC is better than the Big Ten. I love his humor.
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