Bret Bielema roasts Nick Saban, SEC, at Big Ten media days: 'They want to live in 2005 forever'

Well if there's one thing we can be sure of with the 2026 college football season, it's that the budding rivalry between the Big Ten and SEC is only going to get more intense.

At SEC media days recently, several prominent figures spent lengthy press conferences telling anyone who would listen that the SEC deserves all 16 teams in the College Football Playoff. In fact, maybe they'd consider inducting an honorary 17th member if necessary, just to ensure a fair assessment of strength of schedule.

Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian and all were at the very top of their high horses, explaining that SEC teams are automatically superior, even if they lose more games and play poorly against bad teams, and that the College Football Playoff selection committee has not shown the conference the proper respect.

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Lost in all these comments is the inconvenient truth that the SEC has not earned that respect by winning more games against other Power Four teams in the playoff than it has lost. But thankfully for them, Illinois Fighting Illini head coach Bret Bielema is here to remind them.

Bielema at Big Ten media days had some harsh words for the SEC and commissioner Sankey in his introductory comments, saying they're looking to "protect" the conference.

"(Greg) Sankey, I know he's gotta protect the SEC and they kinda wanna live in 2005 forever..."

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"I think the forward thinking in college football is an awesome thing."

He said that two "components" have altered the sport dramatically, the transfer portal and NIL, which has leveled the playing field between schools. Though he did stop short of saying the SEC may have had some financial advantages over other conferences before the introduction of NIL.

"Basically the two biggest things, the biggest components are the transfer portal and revenue share, NIL, however you want to describe it — when those two elements came into college football, the whole world changed," he said.

He also brought up specific examples of players who came to Illinois because of NIL, players that would not have picked Champaign-Urbana if not for those opportunities.

"The last three years — the quarterback I have now, we would not have gotten in the world that existed five years ago. I know that," he added. "Neither would my left tackle, my left guard, my center, and my right tackle wouldn't be here playing for me. And you go around to every team, and the rosters have changed because of those two components: the transfer rule and revenue share. It's a different world. Anything beyond that is nonsense."

This wasn't Bielema's only, uh, brush with the SEC recently. Last week, he took a shot at

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