The Big Ten and ACC may be rival conferences on the basketball court, but there’s a lot that separates the two leagues on the football field. Conference realignment has completely reset the map of college athletics this offseason, with the Big Ten adding USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon while the ACC picked up California and Stanford from what remained of the Pac-12 Conference and also added SMU.

However, Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry — who spent nine seasons as a linebackers coach and defensive coordinator at Penn State under James Franklin — recently made a bold and, frankly, ridiculous claim about the ACC and Big Ten on an appearance on SiruisXM College radio.

“We’ve got great tradition in this league,” Pry said of the ACC. “We’ve got great college towns, we’ve got really good coaching, we’ve got really good skill. I just spent nine years in the Big Ten. The skill in this league is equal or better.”

Put simply, Pry’s claim that the ACC has “equal or better” skill on the football field to the Big Ten simply isn’t true.

Quarterback, running back and wide receiver are considered the “skill positions” on the football field. Pry has been the head coach at Virginia Tech each of the last two seasons, with two NFL Drafts having taken place since he was hired by the Hokies. In those two drafts, the expanded Big Ten has had 33 skill position draft picks (eight QBs, eight RBs, 17 WRs) while the expanded ACC had just 22 such players selected (three QBs, five RBs, 14 WRs). In the 2024 NFL Draft alone, the new Big Ten had five wide receivers taken within the first three rounds, while the ACC had just one.

Michigan has certainly done its part in helping the Big Ten raise its profile in recent seasons. Although the Wolverines are known for their tough defense and dominance at the line of scrimmage, they’ve put their fair share of skill players in the NFL in recent seasons as well, including: QB J.J. McCarthy (2024), RB Blake Corum (2024), WR Roman Wilson (2024), WR Cornelius Johnson (2024) and WR Ronnie Bell (2023).

We’ll give Pry this benefit of the doubt — while he was at Penn State, the league had not yet expanded to include the four West Coast schools. The conference he competed in from 2014-21 looked much different than it does now. But, with the Big Ten adding USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon, the league has further separated itself from the ACC.

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