Kirby Smart saying half the Big Ten is weak while his own program just watched Indiana roll through the playoff is rich. The SEC's top dogs are clearly rattled that the conference power ranking has shifted. By October 2026, Purdue Boilermakers will have definitive proof that the Big Ten's top 5 is deeper than the SEC's top 5 for the first time in a decade. Purdue sits somewhere in that muddy middle tier of the Big Ten, which is ACTUALLY a better position than being in the SEC's bottom half this year. The Boilermakers' SP+ projection has them hovering around 45th nationally, and in the current Big Ten that puts them in that 6th-9th range. That same rating in the SEC drops you to 12th or worse. The math is the math.