(BIG TEN) – The 130th season of Big Ten football will commence this week, as USC kicks off the season on Saturday. The Trojans welcome San Jose State to Los Angeles at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.
- The 2026 Discover Big Ten Championship Game will be held on Saturday, December 5, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and will be broadcast by FOX. The winner will represent the conference as the Automatic Qualifier (AQ) to the College Football Playoff.
- The Big Ten welcomes four new head coaches to the sidelines for the 2026 campaign in Michigan’s Kyle Whittingham, Michigan State’s Pat Fitzgerald, Penn State’s Matt Campbell and UCLA’s Bob Chesney. The Big Ten’s 18 head football coaches combine for 202 seasons of head coaching experience and more than 1,500 wins.
- Abbott and the Big Ten Conference kicked off Season 3 of the We Give Blood drive on August 26. Donations are tracked in real-time until December 4. The school with the most donations at the end will be announced on December 5 at the 2026 Discover Big Ten Championship Game. Every donation can help save up to three lives — and someone in the U.S. needs blood every two seconds.
- Indiana captured its first national title last season with a 27-21 victory over Miami (Fla.) in the 2026 College Football Playoff at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Fla. The Hoosiers capped off the season as the only team in college football history to go 16-0.
- The Big Ten opens the 2026 season having claimed three consecutive College Football Playoff championships by three different universities (Indiana 2026, Ohio State 2025, Michigan 2024).
- With national championships in football and men’s and women’s basketball, the Big Ten became the second conference to sweep football and basketball national titles since 1981-82. The Big Ten is the only conference to achieve the feat with three different schools.
- The Big Ten finished last season with six teams ranked in the AP Top 25, the second-most of any conference, including three teams ranked in the top five. The 2026 AP Preseason Poll features eight Big Ten teams in No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Oregon, No. 6 Indiana, No. T14 USC, No. 16 Michigan, No. 17 Washington, No. 18 Penn State and No. 22 Iowa, while Illinois and Minnesota received votes.
- A trio of Big Ten teams have had the highest win percentages in the FBS the last two seasons — Indiana (27-2, .931), Oregon (26-3, .897) and Ohio State (26-4, .867).
- Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza was the No. 1 overall pick of the 2026 NFL Draft. Mendoza was the first Hoosier selected at No. 1 since Corby Davis (1938), first Big Ten player to go No. 1 since Jake Long (2008) and first Big Ten quarterback picked No. 1 since Jeff George (1990). The Big Ten had 68 players taken in the NFL Draft, including three in the top five — Mendoza, Ohio State’s Carnell Tate (No. 4) and Arvell Reese (No. 5) — and a conference-leading 10 picks in the first round.
- The 2025 Discover Big Ten Championship Game between Indiana and Ohio State set an attendance record with 68,214 fans inside Lucas Oil Stadium. The game was broadcast on FOX and was the most-watched football conference championship game of any conference or network with 18.33 million viewers.
- The Big Ten featured schools in eight of the 10 most-watched college football games during the 2025 season.
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