Chicago —

In the Big Ten versus SEC throwdown, leave it to Curt Cignetti to shut the door on the entire conversation.

The man who, upon arriving at college football’s head table, suggested that those who didn’t know who he was should Google him because he wins served as the closer for college football’s talking season. He was the last coach to speak during the last press conference of media days.

Thanks largely to the abyss of actual football to discuss, the last two weeks have been overrun by the ongoing rhetoric between the SEC and Big Ten.

The two leagues have spent decades preening and posturing around each other, but the conversation has taken an unfamiliar and, for the SEC, at least, uncomfortable shift recently.