The Ohio State Buckeyes will have stiff competition in the Big Ten this season as they look to win their first conference title in six years. Surely, the Oregon Ducks will be one of them, with Dan Lanning bringing back quarterback Dante Moore and once again restocking both the talent and coordinator cupboards.
Josh Pate shared confidence on his "Josh Pate's College Football Show," as in, "no doubt about that," as it pertains to either Ohio State or Oregon winning the conference during the upcoming season.
"Ohio State, yes, I have no doubt about that," Pate said. "Oregon, I have no doubt about that ... I don't want to be disrespectful to Ryan Day (Ohio State Buckeyes football coach) and Dan Lanning (Oregon Ducks football coach). I'm not going to waste a whole lot of time talking about them here.
"I've got so few questions about Oregon relative to the rest of the Big Ten. So I've got them as a 10 as well (as the Ohio State Buckeyes) on my confidence level that they can win the Big Ten."
If Pate has no doubt about these two, it couldn't be more obvious where most of the doubt is among the B1G's bourgeoisie.
Indiana might be the wonky head on the Big Ten's King Ghidora
Do you know that famous King Ghidora meme where there are two heads looking at the third, which has its tongue out and its eyes staring in different directions, and looks out of place and silly next to two scary heads? That's the Indiana Hoosiers in this conversation.
While some feel Indiana is in that conversation, Pate clearly feels there's more staying power in Columbus and Eugene. Which, there is. And that's not a knock on Curt Cignetti, who's arrived on the scene in two seasons and flipped the national conversation surrounding the sport on its head.
Day and Lanning just have proven entities under center and are from institutionally dominant programs with the richest donors in the country.
Then again, the Hoosiers always do better on the field than in preseason hypotheticals anyway. And Pate did choose the Alabama Crimson Tide to win it all last year, so there's also that about who made this prediction in the first place.