CHICAGO — The Big Ten has won three consecutive College Football Playoff championships, sent six programs to the CFP semifinals during that span and won 22 postseason games in the two-year 12-team CFP era. Yet the league has faced criticism that its middle tier doesn’t compare favorably alongside the rival SEC.

This week at Big Ten media days, coaches and officials stood up for the conference’s depth. In the past two seasons against the SEC, the Big Ten won eight of 10 postseason games and won their three CFP matchups by an average of 24.7 points per game. Last year, Iowa and Illinois beat Vanderbilt and Tennessee, respectively, in bowl games while Indiana throttled Alabama in a quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl.

“Illinois, a really good football team,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said. “Iowa, let me tell you, Iowa was one of the most underrated football teams in America last year. Minnesota’s won eight bowl games in a row. USC.

“We let our actions speak for us. The things that we do between the white lines, and there’s a lot of other stuff out there, smoke and mirrors.”

Iowa’s 34-27 win against 10-win Vanderbilt was a throwback-type bowl with only one player opting out of the game. Kirk Ferentz, who is the Big Ten’s winningest coach, snorted when he was asked about the SEC’s claims of dominance and joked, “I don’t have a lot of conference envy. I’ve never suffered from that.”

“I know this: We play in a great conference,” said Ferentz, whose team finished 9-4 and No. 17 in the final AP poll. Vanderbilt, which finished 10-3, still was ranked higher than Iowa at No. 15. “With our team last year, I would have felt comfortable playing anybody, anywhere, anytime.”

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti chose to avoid making direct comparisons between his league and the SEC but stood up for his teams that landed outside the CFP.

“This idea that the middle of our conference isn’t hard is just not right,” Petitti said. “Our teams are ready for the CFP. Our travel looks like the CFP travel. You’re going all over the country. How we play, the difficulty on the road in the Big Ten. I just think that’s overlooked.”

This season, the Big Ten and SEC go head-to-head in three regular-season games, all in Week 2: Ohio State at Texas, Oklahoma at Michigan and Mississippi State at Minnesota. The leagues also have contracts to face off in the Citrus, ReliaQuest and Music City bowls, plus likely CFP matchups. — Scott Dochterman

Underwood’s learning curve

Bryce Underwood rarely gets a break from being Bryce Underwood. The spotlight that comes with being the nation’s No. 1 recruit and playing quarterback at Michigan with a massive name, image and likeness deal shines on Underwood 24/7. When he needs to get away from it all, Underwood has a hobby that helps him decompress: bowling.

“I always watched my dad bowl,” said Underwood, who confidently proclaimed himself the best bowler on the team. “He used to curve the ball, and it didn’t go well for me. I learned how to do it one day and I never stopped.”

First-year Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham said expectations might have been too high for quarterback Bryce Underwood (above) last season as a freshman. (Kamil Krzaczynski / Imagn Images)

Michigan is hoping Underwood has a similar learning curve as a college quarterback. His first year as a starter was rocky, but coach Kyle Whittingham noted the extenuating circumstances: Underwood was an 18-year-old freshman who didn’t get much opportunity to develop. Michigan is banking that new offensive coordinator Jason Beck can unlock the potential that made Underwood such a coveted recruit.

“The expectations might have been a little high for him last year,” Whittingham said. “I don’t know what people did expect, but he was able to win nine ballgames and put up some decent numbers. He knows and we know that those numbers have to improve, but given the circumstances, I thought he did some good things.”

Underwood completed 60 percent of his passes with 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions while throwing for 187 yards per game. Underwood had a lot of work to do on his fundamentals, Whittingham said, particularly in refining his footwork. Underwood’s offseason included trips to Southern California to train with quarterback specialist Jordan Palmer and Bengals star Joe Burrow.

“It was amazing just to watch how calm he was at all times,” Underwood said. “It was just real refreshing, honestly, to see some of the things I could take from him.” — Austin Meek

Ryan Day still wants schedule changes

Eight months after losing to Miami in a CFP quarterfinal in the Cotton Bowl, the Ohio State coach said that his team didn’t handle the nearly four-week layoff after the Big Ten Championship Game well against the Hurricanes. Ohio State fell behind 14-0 to Miami before losing 24-14.

“We had a really good plan going into it, but I don’t think we played very well in the first half,” Day said. “We found ourselves in a hole and ran out of time, because we couldn’t finish things off.”

While acknowledging that he, and his coaching staff, have to do a better job of preparing his players, he said he has voiced his concerns about the scheduling to Petitti. If Day had his way, the entire season would be moved up one week to narrow the gap between the end of the regular season and the postseason, move the semifinals to New Year’s and play the championship game a week after that.

“That would allow us to end the season sooner, open up the (transfer) portal, finish the season and then put your roster together, which would all make much more sense to me,” Day said. “But it’s college football, so we’re going to adapt because nobody cares. We better figure it out, because we’re going to be in that situation again. Hopefully, really soon.” — Cameron Teague Robinson

A first for Fitzgerald

The first-year Michigan State coach returned to his hometown Wednesday to attend his 18th Big Ten media days. But this was the first where Pat Fitzgerald wore a green tie, not purple.

There’s considerable curiosity surrounding the 51-year-old’s return to the Big Ten after a three-year exile following his ouster at alma mater Northwestern in July 2023 following an investigation into hazing allegations in his program. But he was quick to correct reporters who referred to him being “out of coaching.”

“I’m not trying to minimize your question,” he said. “I just never felt like I was out of it.”

Fitzgerald, who reached a settlement with Northwestern last August in his $130 million wrongful termination suit, spent the past three football seasons as a “volunteer parent” assistant coach at Chicago’s Loyola Academy. One of his sons, Ryan (now a walk-on at Iowa), was a quarterback for back-to-back state title teams in 2023 and ’24, and another son, Brendan, is a receiver there. (He recently committed to Michigan State as a preferred walk-on.)

“I learned a lot. I’m a better teacher,” Fitzgerald said. “When you’re teaching a young guy how to run a curl route, and he’s like, ‘What’s a curl?’”

Still, there are understandable questions how Fitzgerald will adapt to modern roster acquisition, which has changed dramatically since 2023. Michigan State signed 32 transfers this past cycle. But the Spartans coach believes coaching itself is timeless.

“Guys want to be developed. They want to be coached,” he said. “Our staff motto is to be the best player development staff in the country.” — Stewart Mandel

Chesney’s charm takes Chicago

Bob Chesney was a big hit on Wednesday.

The 48-year-old Pennsylvania native played and coached Division III football in his home state and coached at various levels in Georgia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and for the past two seasons at James Madison in Harrisonburg, Va. And yet, the takeaway from nearly all who met him in Chicago was that Chesney appears a great fit at UCLA.

Perhaps it’s that simple — he fits anywhere. And with anyone. He’s formed a bond in Los Angeles with Dave Roberts, manager of the Dodgers who served an adviser to the search committee that picked Chesney.

Chesney also sought advice from Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay about handing the long distances that both of their teams must often travel to play on the road. The travel issue has kept Big Ten coaches on the West Coast up at night, worried over the logistics of long trips.

UCLA’s new coach is unlikely to overthink time-zone jumps and circadian rhythms. McVay told Chesney that if the Rams play in London, “they just show up.”

“They show up at 6 o’clock the night before the game, get up in the morning and play the game and go home,” Chesney said. “The belief is, they get in and get out and it never really hits them.”

The Bruins play this year at Maryland, Minnesota and Michigan. For Chesney, who grew accustomed to long bus trips while coaching at the lowest levels of college, UCLA’s luxury travel, by comparison, seems manageable. — Mitch Sherman

Mutual respect

First-year Penn State coach Matt Campbell and Ferentz, his Iowa counterpart, battled against one another for 10 seasons in the state of Iowa, and the coaches’ rhetoric generally featured muted respect amid the in-state rivalry. Now, with Campbell leaving Iowa State, the coaches are looser with their praise of one another. Ferentz called Campbell to Penn State “a great marriage” while the former Iowa State coach said, “my respect for coach Ferentz is second to none.”

“I teased him this May in our spring meetings that I’ve been mad at him for a decade because I really had nothing to hate him about,” Ferentz said. “I just respect him as a coach and respect him as a person.”

“I sat right by him and tried to pick his brain with as much knowledge as I could,” Campbell said. “Coach did the same thing when I was at Iowa State. He was always willing to sit and talk and listen.” — Dochterman

‘I’m getting killed on Twitter’

Nebraska hears the outside negativity after the Huskers lost consecutive games in lopsided style against Penn State, Iowa and Utah to end the 2025 season. Coach Matt Rhule kept a low profile this offseason. When he attended a New York Knicks playoff game in April at Madison Square Garden, some fans howled on social media that the coach should spend all of his time at work for the Huskers.

According to Rhule, that’s exactly what he was doing.

“I take a donor to the Knicks game,” he said. “I spend my own money to get the donor there. I get the tickets. We sit with the GM and the president. I’m doing all this in the service of the university, and I’m getting killed on Twitter.

“You can say whatever you want, you can’t say I don’t work hard.”

Last fall in working to generate visibility for his program, Rhule co-hosted a weekly podcast and made regular appearances on “The Pat McAfee Show.” He likely won’t do much of that this season, Rhule said. Of course, with players and staff, it’s impossible to block out all the noise.

“If I could get everyone in our building not to listen to anyone outside of our building, I would,” Rhule said. — Sherman

Every offseason, Commanders left tackle Laremy Tunsil follows an immersive program he developed with his team of trusted specialists, including his longtime strength and conditioning coach, dietician, personal chef and private offensive line coach.

For nearly a month leading to training camp, Tunsil isolates to focus on football.

The days begin around 7 a.m., and every hour, every detail has a purpose. It’s an exercise in mental fortitude that, this year, unfolded in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

“I learned this process through trial and error,” Tunsil told The Athletic. “I probably didn’t have the answers my first year and my second year, but I had good guys around me and I could just ask some questions from the (Ndamukong) Suhs, the Cameron Wakes, the Mike Pounceys, Ja’Wuan James.”

Tunsil’s program was built over years and tailored to him. The personalized approach is integral to the full-service management company, Divine Tree, that he runs alongside longtime business partner and manager Laolu Sanni. His five Pro Bowl selections are the proof of concept.

Tunsil’s 6-foot-5, 313-pound body is his business, and for much of his career, business has been booming. In March, while acting as his own agent, he signed a two-year, $60.2 million extension that made him the league’s highest-paid offensive tackle in average annual value. It was the third time in his career that he reset the market for his position.

To stay among the NFL’s elite tackles, Tunsil invests heavily — in his training, his recovery and his diet. He’s also quietly invested in his teammates, a less heralded aspect of his career that has especially benefited a couple of younger Commanders linemen. This offseason, similar to last, Tunsil invited second-year tackle Josh Conerly Jr. and guard Brandon Coleman down to Alabama to train alongside him.

“He’s got a presence, he’s fit, he’s strong, he’s ready,” Commanders coach Dan Quinn said of Tunsil. “But he’s been a really good teammate here and sometimes that doesn’t show up on a stat sheet, that doesn’t show up when you’re looking into free agency and trades and those types of things. So, there was more there than I even thought about the impact that he makes on some other people here.”

Strength power and speed

A pillar of Tunsil’s performance is his strength and conditioning, which has been overseen by Dominic Studzinski for more than a decade. Studzinski was an assistant strength coach at Ole Miss when Tunsil was a staple on the Rebels’ offensive line from 2013 through 2015.

Tunsil’s lowest point at Ole Miss became a turning point for his future. Tunsil suffered a fractured fibula and dislocated ankle during the Peach Bowl in December, 2014. Studzinski’s focus at Ole Miss was helping players with post-operative care, working alongside the Rebels’ sports performance team to help get athletes back on the field.

The two grew close as Tunsil spent months rehabbing his leg, often doing two or three sessions a day, five or six days a week. When Tunsil returned for his final season in 2015, his body had transformed.

“In that short period of time, the difference in his body was just ridiculous,” Studzinski recalled. “That right there, I think, was a huge point of like, holy cow, if I can do this in this time, what else could I do?”

Tunsil began preparing for the 2015 NFL Draft at a training center in California, but soon felt the program didn’t fit him, so he went back to Ole Miss to work with Studzinski. They’ve been together every offseason since.

Their focus is simple — ”it’s a strength, power and speed sport,” Studzinski said — but their methods continually evolve. “Stagnancy cannot happen,” he said. “We cannot just sit there and do, Hey, look, in 2018, we ran this program and we really liked that. That’s not a thing.”

At the start of the offseason, Studzinski runs a gamut of tests to assess Tunsil’s body — the deficiencies, the asymmetries, the areas that lack full range of motion and so on. Their program is then tailored accordingly, while factoring in nuances up to scheme changes. Previous Washington offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury ran a primarily no-huddle system, so Tunsil’s training had to fit an up-tempo system. That will change under new offensive coordinator David Blough, whose huddle offense will have the quarterback under center more.

“Now, we’ve got to work this range of the energy system spectrum a bit differently from when we had the tempo years,” Studzinski said. “So little things like that, from a tactical standpoint, are just small advantages to get him ready for camp.”

The fuel

Tunsil was traded to the Houston Texans in 2019 after three seasons with the Miami Dolphins, which led to another transformation. Jacob Mertens was Houston’s assistant performance dietician at the time, and he helped Tunsil realize the impact proper nutrition could have on his game.

As the two developed a trust, Mertens — whose focus includes nutrition, strength and conditioning and recovery — convinced him of the value in having a private chef. He introduced Tunsil to Ronald Shaw, a Navy veteran who built a culinary career and was working at a French restaurant in Houston.

Tunsil initially employed Shaw to cook dinner for him four nights a week. That quickly expanded to include customized lunches and breakfasts that Shaw prepared and brought to the team facility each day during the season.

Shaw stays with Tunsil throughout his offseason regimen in Alabama, whipping up meals and snacks that appear suited for a five-star restaurant. Think lobster rolls for lunch, and seared lamb chops with curry gnocchi or braised short ribs with rutabaga puree for dinner.

Breakfast usually consists of three eggs, 175 grams of rice or potatoes, organic chicken sausage, maybe some fruit and toast, along with supplements. The night before games, Shaw always prepares the same dinner: seared fillet mignon, seared salmon, garlic noodles and vegetables.

Laremy Tunsil’s meal the night before a game includes seared filet mignon, seared salmon, steamed broccolini and garlic noodles, while a typical dinner might be seared lamb chops with curry gnocchi. (Ronald Shaw)

When Tunsil was traded to the Commanders in 2025, Shaw agreed to follow him to D.C. Tunsil’s breakfasts and lunches are brought to the team facility in northern Virginia, and his dinners are prepared in house. When the Commanders are on the road, Shaw ships Tunsil’s supplements, snacks and health bars so they’re waiting for him when he arrives.

Shaw has full creative license of his menu planning, but each dish fits Tunsil’s preferences and adheres to the parameters set by Mertens.

Tunsil typically doesn’t eat fried food, and meals around a workout generally include leaner cuts of meat. He doesn’t have any carbohydrates with dinner in the offseason, but during the season season, his carb allowance in the evenings can vary depending on his workload and recovery needs.

The portions, however, are strict. Shaw weighs and measures Tunsil’s food so his team can keep track of his nutrition, even down to a cellular level. Mertens monitors Tunsil’s electrolytes and checks for any nutrient deficiencies regularly, through bloodwork and DEXA scans that measure his body mass and bone density. If anything is off, his diet and supplementation are tweaked.

Mertens also helps Tunsil manage his recovery, ensuring appointments with various specialists are scheduled around games and practices.

“The amount of money that he’s spent on various wellness recovery things that he has at his place in Alabama and is going to have set up at his house in Virginia can rival probably what a lot of teams already have,” Mertens said. “… There’s a lot of people who have talent, but when they don’t have attention to detail in those various areas and how it affects their performance, those guys fizzle out.”

The movement

The hallmark of Tunsil’s play is his pass set — the quick feet, coupled with hand placement and a low base. His smooth movements belie his size and have helped him become one of the most efficient left tackles in the game.

It wasn’t an accident.

Since 2020, Tunsil has worked with private skills coach Mike Wahle to hone the smallest details of his game. They connected during Tunsil’s early years in Miami, where Wahle — a former guard who played 11 seasons in the NFL — was an assistant with the Dolphins after leaving his second career in finance.

They meet a couple times a week every offseason, going back to the fundamentals and “repping the boring stuff,” as Wahle says. He believes a lineman’s success is determined by his actions before contact with a defender. So he and Tunsil routinely work on pre-contact footwork, body position and hand placement, breaking them down for both run game and pass game.

“He understands what I call best practice movement mechanics,” Wahle said. “… We go through the same basic process pretty much every single day and we’re just trying to rep every different run scenario that he has, whether it’s the width of the defender, whether it is the angle of departure, how you want to get to your spot under control in the right body profile so you can make contact with both feet in the ground, etc. He understands body position and movement, and once he believes in something, he’s going to work until it’s perfect.”

Paying it forward

Laremy Tunsil, right, has taken younger teammates like Josh Conerly Jr. under his wing. (Luca Gallo)

Studzinski, Mertens, Shaw and Wahle have had first-row seats to much of Tunsil’s career, watching him evolve from a talented first-round pick to a regular Pro Bowler.

They’ve also seen him grow into a mentor, leading Conerly and Coleman without fanfare. When the Commanders selected Conerly in the first round in 2025, Tunsil was the first teammate to call him. They walk out to practice together, warm up together and spend extra time on the field together.

“I naturally just want to do it because I see a lot of potential in him,” Tunsil said. “I see how much he cares about it. He asks me questions. He wants to be better. He wants to be great. I love a young guy who has that mindset.”

Their time together has paid early dividends. When Conerly returned to Virginia for OTAs this spring, he had transformed physically. And Commanders offensive line coach Darnell Stapleton has seen the difference in the details.

“Detail of like, hey, this guy’s setting you up and going to hit you with this move,” Stapleton said. “The patience of his set. ‘LT’ has one of the smoothest pass sets in the game, and I think Josh is learning some of the mannerisms and techniques, and just to never panic or stress out and to use your athleticism to get you in a spot where you can use your strength. That detail, sometimes coaches can’t always articulate it in a way that someone who has been doing it for a long time at a high level can.”

In Conerly, Tunsil sees much of himself. There is, he believes, a hunger for greatness and a will to find it.

Tunsil’s own quest has come at a significant cost, of both time and money, but he’s still chasing – chasing a first-team All-Pro selection, chasing more Pro Bowls, chasing a first Lombardi Trophy.

“We’re all busting our ass to reach that goal,” he said. “But individually, I still have a lot that I want to prove.”

The offers were always going to come in for Arne Slot.

His successes in previous years mean clubs and national teams across the world place his name high up on their lists of targets for vacant managerial positions.

After all, there aren’t many out-of-work managers with league titles in two different countries, especially where one of those was as recent as 2025 and in the Premier League, with Liverpool.

The big news was never going to be the interest, of which Slot has had plenty post-Anfield. It was always going to be the destination he chose.

That, according to sources with knowledge of the 47-year-old Dutchman’s thinking, who like all of those spoken to for this article asked to be kept anonymous to protect relationships, will ideally be within the recognised European elite, as Slot has his eyes firmly fixed on another experience with a club competing for honours in a top-five league somewhere on his home continent. If he can do it at Liverpool, he can do it anywhere, right?

That’s why, for now, those sources say a move to somewhere like the Saudi Pro League doesn’t hold any great appeal. Al Ahli, who are set to lose their manager Matthias Jaissle to Newcastle United, had shortlisted Slot as a potential replacement, but are unlikely to receive any encouragement.

There’s an interesting opportunity available with the Netherlands national team following Ronald Koeman’s exit after a disappointing World Cup campaign this summer, and unsurprisingly, Slot’s name has been mentioned in those quarters, too.

Yet the desire for another crack at managing in one of the top leagues in Europe remains strong.

Slot has stayed quiet and out of the limelight since he was sacked by Liverpool a week after the end of his second season in charge, instead choosing to do the talking in his own head. No doubt he’ll have debriefed the good and the bad at Anfield and he’s already preparing for a new adventure, wherever that may be.

Slot won the title with Liverpool last year in his debut season (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

At what point he decides his creative juices are flowing sufficiently to throw himself back into the lion’s den depends entirely on the project concerned. He’s certainly earned the right to be selective, having won the Premier League just over a year ago, having been heavily coveted prior to that.

He’s also still relatively young and has only experienced six years as a top-flight head coach. His next job won’t make or break him, but it’s crucial after a high-pressured, all-encompassing role at Liverpool, where he left with his first blemish on an otherwise impressive track record, that he picks it carefully.

The blessing of extra family time, an extended holiday and a period out of the spotlight often refreshes managers, until they start getting an itch. It’s not the long days or the press conferences they miss but the dressing room, the small daily wins, and the buzz of matchday.

Slot was so good at his job for so long that it would be weird if he weren’t setting the bar high for his next job.

There will be plenty of clubs willing to focus on his body of work leading up to that difficult second season in England, rather than the reasons for his exit, when they are considering change.

Two of his Liverpool assistants, Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Sipke Hulshoff, wasted no time getting back into football as they quickly moved to Feyenoord as head coach (Slot’s job before he went to Anfield as Jurgen Klopp’s successor) and assistant, respectively. Slot, however, has preferred to take his time and wait for the perfect opportunity.

For a while, he propelled himself into a position of managerial royalty. A guy who seemingly could do no wrong.

First at AZ, who were neck-and-neck with Ajax at the top of the 2019-20 Eredivisie table under him before the pandemic halted the race after 25 games and the Dutch league decided not to crown champions for that season. Then, joining Feyenoord the following year, he transformed a club desperate for change and delivered only their second domestic title this century. And most recently, he took on the daunting challenge of replacing the beloved Klopp at Liverpool and won the Premier League at the first time of asking.

His downfall on Merseyside, however, was as sharp as his rise, and while the circumstances of his swift post-season exit were surprising, it was not totally unexpected.

Liverpool were dreadful as champions, losing 19 of their 57 games in all competitions (20 if you count being beaten on penalties by Crystal Palace in the Community Shield), and conceding more goals (53) than in any previous 38-game Premier League campaign. They also lacked an identity towards the end as injuries ripped through the squad and key players from previous years were sorely missed.

Granted, Slot struggled to halt the slide, but he can’t be criticised for being the problem then and not praised for being the solution a year before.

Most sensible observers will recognise that his level of influence sits somewhere in the middle.

Yes, he pulled together a group through clear instructions, tactical masterplans and key in-game changes to make Liverpool the best team in the country, and yes, he lost his magic touch last season while also failing to come up with the answers that only a head coach could provide.

But one bad season at Liverpool will not put off suitors across Europe in the times ahead. Nor will it ruin a reputation that saw him mixing with the most respected names in the world not so long ago.
 He’s also 47, not 57, so he’s got time. Saudi and the broader Gulf region’s riches can wait for now as he continues to reboot.

What he lacked at Liverpool was the know-how to escape from a crisis. He admitted himself that he was not used to losing more than two games in a row over a short managerial career, and when results spiralled out of control, he couldn’t fix it.

Perhaps in time, the way it ended will be a blessing.

If he bounces back successfully, then he’s ticked the box of overcoming adversity. Most managers can look back on a difficult moment that changed them for the better, while others have to accept that they achieved heights never to be experienced again.

When Antonio Conte left Chelsea in March 2018, 10 months after leading them to the Premier League title, he didn’t win a league again until topping Serie A with Inter three years later.

Luis Enrique was insecure in his position at Barcelona at the end of 2014 before going on to win the treble that season. His subsequent spell in charge of Spain’s national team was far less fruitful, but since returning to club football with Paris Saint-Germain in summer 2023 he has won back-to-back Champions Leagues.

One man Slot was regularly compared to at the back end of his Liverpool reign was compatriot and former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag. Former Liverpool defender and Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher discussed the similar trend of performing well in their first season in England and then dropping off into the second.

Perhaps the fact they were both shaven-headed Dutchmen who had worked wonders in their homeland before moving to the Premier League made it an easy comparison, even if the finer details were nuanced. Yet Ten Hag’s next job after United was at Bayer Leverkusen in Germany, where he only lasted three games. Whatever happens next for Slot, it feels very unlikely he will have the same experience.

After two and a half months of silence, and with the new European season looming, it’s only a matter of time before an opportunity presents itself for Slot.

If it’s in one of Europe’s major leagues, with a club looking for a refresh, he’s ready to show why so many previously considered him one of the best in the business.