"Ohio State has been one of the most consistent teams in college football": Nick Saban impressed by Ryan Day sends a powerful message

The Ohio State Buckeyes continued their strong start to the 2025 college football season with a convincing win over the Illinois Fighting Illni on Saturday.

This keeps them undefeated and puts them in a good position to successfully defend their national championship title.

The performance of the Buckeyes in this game and those throughout the season were praised by former Alabama coach Nick Saban this week.

During an appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show" on Friday, Saban said the following:

“They’ve been one of the most consistent teams so far this season. Look at their defense. They’ve only given up 25 points for the whole season and have been dominant and have played two really good teams, Texas and Washington.”

Ohio State has been able to have five very strong wins to open the season. As Saban has noted, their defense has been one of the best, and coming into this week has only conceded 25 points.

This figure has been slightly increased after the 34-16 run over Illinois today, but only conceding 41 points in six games is a massive show or strength from the Buckeyes.

The offense has also been consistently powerful. New quarterback Julian Sayin has been able to lead the program to these victories and despite some minor struggles against the Texas Longhorns in his first game, Sayin has been able to position himself as a rising star in college football.

Nick Saban compares the Big Ten to the SEC

During the same interview, Nick Saban gave his take on the current states of the Big Ten and SEC, the two biggest conferences in college football.

"I don't think the Big Ten is really that deep. I think Illinois has a pretty decent team. It's not like the SEC where you've got eight or nine teams that can beat you. Think there are three or four teams in the Big Ten that can beat you." Said Saban.

This has always been the main criticism of the Big Ten Conference.

While the SEC has numerous strong team, all of whom could beat eachother leading to a generally stronger schedule, for a Big Ten team like Ohio State, it sometimes feels that the schedule is just a prelude to the Michigan Wolverines game at the end of the season.

The recent expansion of the conference adding Oregon and some of the stronger former PAC-12 team have helped with make the conference stronger, but unless a massive improvement is seen from numerous conference members, the Big Ten will never live up to the SEC.

Edited by Ben Tredinnick