The Swamp Knows Something the Big Ten Doesn’t
BUDDY MARTIN | COLUMN
The national picture runs through Ben Hill Griffin Stadium this weekend, whether Gator Nation asked for the responsibility or not.
By Buddy Martin · GatorBaitMedia.com
Illustration: GatorBait Media (AI-generated).
Florida hosts No. 4 Ole Miss Saturday as roughly a field-goal favorite, a number that ought to feel obscene for a program four losing seasons deep and somehow doesn’t.
Somewhere in Columbus, a man in a scarlet golf shirt is arguing that blowing a 23-3 lead to Texas doesn’t count against the Big Ten’s case for supremacy — the way a three-time truck-wrecker insists he’s still a fine driver.
Gator fans have every right to feel like bystanders in that argument. They aren’t.
And the betting calculus is mind-boggling.
If any of you MIT, Harvard or Stanford men out there could phone home and explain the fluctuating odds in Florida’s favor — because it sure isn’t just about which team’s better — and how The Swamp figures into the math, I’d sit still for the whole tutorial, coffee included.
My own theory requires no calculus: It’s the sellout crowd’s sheer bullheaded willpower, the kind that doesn’t THINK the Gators are fixing to do something, it KNOWS it, the way a revival tent knows the collection plate’s coming back full.
The Vegas wizards apparently smell the same thing. Smart money’s piling onto Florida even as three-quarters of the public tickets ride with Ole Miss — the kind of split that usually means somebody in a windowless room has watched more tape of that stadium than any tout ever will.
And it isn’t just the choir singing this one’s praises at home. The bookies themselves are calling Florida-Mississippi the most fascinating — but scariest! — bet on the board this weekend, ahead of anything the NFL is serving up Sunday or Monday — which is either a hell of a compliment to Gainesville or a hell of an insult to the NFL, take your pick.
Meanwhile this just came in from Vegas: 77% of the Money on Rebels money line.
75% of the Bets on Rebels ML.
79% of the Money on Rebels Spread.
85% of the Bets on Rebels Spread.
Make of it what you will, but it’s all starting to feel like TMI.
Florida has won 3 of the last 5 vs. Ole Miss.
Beat the Rebels, and Jon Sumrall’s 3-0 Gators stop being a nice comeback story and start being Exhibit A in the SEC’s argument that it, not the three-time defending champion Big Ten, is the best league in the country. Lose, and Florida’s still living in the only conference actually fighting to end the drought.
Either way, the national picture runs through Gainesville this weekend, whether Gator Nation asked for the responsibility or not.
Because here’s the SEC’s real problem, and it isn’t a rumor: The league that won 13 of 17 national titles between 2006 and 2022 hasn’t sniffed a championship game in three years, its longest dry spell since 1999-2002. Michigan won it. Then Ohio State won it. Then Indiana — a program the AP itself once called the losingest outfit in major college football history — went 16-0 and beat Miami 27-21 for the whole marble. Fernando Mendoza collected a Heisman and a national championship in the same season like a man who’d hit the lottery twice.
Three schools, three straight coronations, the Big Ten’s best run since 1942. Urban Meyer, who’s won titles wearing both colors, put it plainly: “That was last year. We’ll see [what happens] this year.”
We’re seeing it. The SEC and Big Ten played exactly three games against each other all season, all on September 12, and it’s already over. Texas beat then-No. 1 Ohio State 24-23 in Austin. Michigan beat Oklahoma 17-10. And Mississippi State walked into Minneapolis and hung 38-13 on Minnesota, a quarterback named Kamario Taylor throwing three first-half touchdowns like he had somewhere better to be.
SEC 2, Big Ten 1, and that’s the entire ledger — no rematch on the calendar.
Part of that is by rule: The SEC requires every school to schedule an additional nonconference opponent from another Power Four league or Notre Dame; the Big Ten has no equivalent requirement. Which is how defending champion Indiana opened its title defense against North Texas, Howard and Western Kentucky — outscoring that trio 145-16 without leaving Bloomington.
The polls noticed anyway. Texas sits No. 1, Georgia No. 2, Ole Miss No. 4 after hanging 32-24 on then-No. 7 LSU — the SEC owns three of the AP’s top four spots and roughly 40 percent of the whole Top 25.
Against Power Four opponents outside their own league, the SEC is 10-2, the only conference above .500; the Big Ten is 4-9, worst among the power leagues.
Prefer numbers to vibes? Georgia and Ohio State are separated by a coin flip atop SP+ — the tip of the Big Ten’s spear is still sharp, the drawer behind it just isn’t.
None of that buys a trophy. The Big Ten is 9-3 against other conferences in the Playoff over two seasons, including 8-2 against the SEC once games mean more than a T-shirt. But current Playoff projections show four probable SEC entrants against three likely Big Ten teams, Georgia alone drawing an 86 percent shot at the field.
My honest verdict: The SEC has climbed out of the ditch, and this is its best crack at ending the drought since Georgia stopped winning titles. But it starts getting decided in Gainesville, not Indianapolis.
If Florida beats Ole Miss Saturday, revise everything upward. If Florida loses by that same field goal, the conclusion barely changes. The SEC is still the conference showing up, and the Big Ten is still holding the trophy until somebody pries it loose. Either way, I’ll be here Sunday, cheerfully wrong about something.
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