Curt Cignetti blasts ESPN for SEC bias in CFP rankings

Curt Cignetti claims ESPN’s SEC bias influences CFP rankings.

The Indiana Hoosiers head coach did not hold back during his weekly radio show Wednesday night.

Speaking from Yogi’s in downtown Bloomington alongside Voice of the Hoosiers Don Fischer, Cignetti was asked for his thoughts on the first set of College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday.

Indiana debuted at No. 4 with an 8-1 record.

But Cignetti’s focus was not on his own team’s position.

He turned his attention to the SEC’s heavy presence in the top 25.

“Come on,” Cignetti said with a laugh.

“These people, and there’s a whole bunch of ‘em, they march out of the tent and they’re given instructions on what to say and they follow the company line, right? And I don’t need to go any further.”

He then went further.

“[The] SEC gets a lot of love from the ESPN, you know, and all their writers that they don’t technically pay but march to their drum,” Cignetti said.

“So that’s why you see all these SEC teams up there, you know, and some good two-loss teams from the Big Ten, not quite as high.”

The numbers give his argument some weight.

The SEC placed 10 teams in the initial 25-team CFP rankings — more than any other conference.

Five SEC teams with two losses each appeared in the top 14.

Alabama and Texas, both two-loss SEC programs, were ranked ahead of UCLA, the Big Ten’s only undefeated team.

UCLA sat at No. 8.

The highest-ranked two-loss Big Ten squad was Ohio State at No. 12.

Under the current 12-team playoff format, that would leave the Buckeyes on the outside, with Boise State — a Group of Six representative — taking the final spot.

Cignetti acknowledged that the committee’s work is not final.

He admitted everything will be “played out on the field” before the 12-team field is set.

But his criticism went beyond the raw rankings.

He pointed to the business relationship between ESPN and the SEC.

ESPN pays the SEC billions of dollars for its media rights.

The network owns and operates the SEC Network.

ESPN also holds the rights to the College Football Playoff itself, including the weekly Tuesday night rankings reveal that turns the selection committee’s deliberations into primetime programming.

The Big Ten, by contrast, has been a Fox conference since 2022.

That year, ESPN walked away from negotiations for Big Ten rights.

The league then finalized deals with Fox, CBS and NBC.

For the first time in roughly four decades, Big Ten football disappeared from ESPN’s airwaves.

Cignetti’s comments echoed a sentiment that fans of non-SEC teams have voiced for years.

Many have claimed there is an extensive media bias in favor of the SEC.

The first CFP rankings of 2026 gave them fresh ammunition.

Cignetti was not the only Big Ten coach to needle ESPN this week.

On Tuesday, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz joked that the Hawkeyes probably would not make the rankings because they play on Fox.

Ferentz cited ESPN’s scant coverage of the Fox-exclusive World Series as evidence that the network promotes only the events it broadcasts.

Despite Ferentz’s prediction, Iowa landed at No. 19 with a 6-2 record.

Cignetti also took to social media to defend Indiana’s résumé.