The Ohio State Buckeyes celebrate a victory after the Ohio State-Northwestern Big Ten championship game on Dec. 19, 2020. Ohio State won 22-10. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Lantern Photo Vault
No. 1 vs. No. 2.
The cornerstone of the conference versus the new kids on the block.
Two of the nation’s top quarterbacks battling it out for a potential bid at the Heisman Trophy.
The Big Ten Championship game has all the makings of the biggest game on the college football schedule this season, except for one thing: it doesn’t really matter who wins.
Ohio State and Indiana will play in the 15th annual Big Ten Championship game, with the winner earning the top seed in the College Football Playoff and a spot in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. For the Buckeyes, it’s their first appearance since 2020, when they beat Northwestern to secure a bid to the CFP semifinal. For the Hoosiers, it marks the first appearance in a conference title game in program history.
Yet thanks to the 12-team College Football Playoff format and the dominance both programs have displayed all season, Saturday’s outcome won’t prevent either team from continuing its national title pursuit. Win or lose, both Ohio State and Indiana are all but guaranteed playoff spots, and likely top-four seeds at that.
The stakes
The expanded playoff, which started in 2024, was designed to create more meaningful games across the country, and in many ways, it has. Unlike the four-team playoff format, where a loss or two virtually ended your season, the 12-team playoff prolongs teams’ hopes of a shot at a national championship.
But for matchups like this one, a battle of undefeated heavyweights, it has also created a strange dynamic: a conference championship with little consequence.
The winner will enjoy the spoils of the No. 1 seed and the most “favorable” path to the national title. The loser will likely be placed no lower than No. 4, still hosting a first-round bye and maintaining a clear path toward a championship run.
Ohio State head coach Ryan Day isn’t brushing off the game, even if it doesn’t carry do-or-die stakes.
“It’s one of the things on our list of goals during the season is to get to Indianapolis,” Day said. “Our guys are excited to do that.”
But even for the glory and hardware that comes with winning the game, the truth is that both teams still have to play an extra game with no real playoff implications at stake, making the real meaning of the game unclear.
The playoff calculus
When asked about the balance between going all-out to win versus resting players for the playoff run, Day acknowledged the magnitude of the decision.
“I think it’s something that we need to consider just how it plays into the playoffs and what it means,” Day said. “So I do hear what you’re saying, but I think it’s also important to be the one seed.”
In other words: yes, the playoff format changes things, but no, the Buckeyes won’t treat Saturday like an exhibition.
Indiana won’t either.
The Hoosiers have spent the season proving they belong among college football’s elite, rising from a preseason afterthought to a legitimate national championship contender. They’ve earned the right to chase a conference crown, and the right to keep playing regardless of how Saturday unfolds.
The future of the game
As the sport continues to move deeper into the 12-team playoff era, the future of conference championship games like this one will inevitably come into question.
The Big Ten title once carried enormous weight, determining which team survived the season and which team was sent home, but the current format has shifted the risk-reward balance in a way that may challenge how programs approach it moving forward.
Coaches across the country have already raised concerns about the strain of an expanded postseason, and as more seasons resemble this one, in which both teams enter the championship all but guaranteed a playoff spot, the motivation to push starters through 60 minutes of high-stakes football may diminish. The hypothetical that keeps coaches up at night is not about seeding; it is about health, since one mistimed hit or awkward landing in Indianapolis could drastically alter a team’s playoff chances even after a flawless regular season.
If the conference championship becomes a game that can only hurt a playoff contender, its meaning will shift. Teams may begin resting players, altering rotations, or even openly questioning whether the additional game is worth the risk.
The idea of a contender treating the Big Ten Championship as a formality would have once sounded unthinkable, yet as long as both teams know they are advancing regardless of the score, the incentives that built the significance of this night will continue to erode.
Saturday will still deliver the pageantry, the atmosphere and the intensity expected from a No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown, and players on both sides will treat it like a chance to prove something before the playoff begins.
But with the landscape shifting rapidly and the postseason expanding further into December and January, the relevance of conference championship weekend is entering uncertain territory.
What was once the pinnacle of the season is now becoming a checkpoint, and unless the structure changes again, games like this one may increasingly feel like high-risk, low-reward stepping stones to something bigger rather than the defining moments they once were.
