Skull Session: Ohio State Has College Football’s Second-Most Valuable Program, Matt Patricia Had His Players Rank Their Defensive Teammates Before the 2025 Season

By Chase Brown on July 30, 2026 at 4:55 am
Jeremiah Smith, Julian Sayin and Jaylen McClain
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Welcome to the Skull Session.

Introducing THE patch.

Have a good Thursday.

 BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIGGER CITY. Big Ten Media Days are a lot of fun. Every team is as confident as ever, fast as ever and healthy as ever. Every coach can’t wait to get the season started and win a conference championship and a national title — even the Big Ten bottom feeders!

Good news: When Ryan Day expressed confidence in Ohio State, I believe him. He traveled to Chicago with Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith and Jaylen McClain on Wednesday, and the head coach and his three stars looked calm, cool and collected as the team prepares for a gauntlet of a 2026 schedule with annual goals to beat Michigan, win its first Big Ten championship since 2020 and its second national title in three years.

Dan Hope and I are still in the Windy City on Thursday to cover all the comments and quotes from Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham and players Bryce Underwood, Jordan Marshall and Trey Pierce. Same goes for Indiana coach Curt Cignetti and players Isaiah Jones, Carter Smith and Tyrique Tucker.

We’ll see if any of them slip up and give Ohio State some bulletin board material entering 2026. Not that the Buckeyes need any more motivation to succeed after their disappointing end to 2025, but it never hurts to have material that makes the chips on their shoulders a little bigger.

 MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY… MONEY! This week, The Athletic’s Matt Baker completed a fun exercise: What if college football teams could be sold? How much would each Power 4 program be worth? Then he did the math.

According to Baker, college football’s most valuable program is Texas at $2.46 billion. While the Longhorns did not report the most football revenue during the 2024-25 fiscal year, their three-year average of $190 million ranks No. 1 nationally. As a result, Baker’s calculations put Texas’ valuation on par with the 2020 sale of the New York Mets ($2.4 billion, not adjusted for inflation — that’s 2,011 payments to Bobby Bonilla!).

Ohio State ranks No. 2 on Baker’s list with a valuation of $2.3 billion, a $400 million increase from The Athletic’s 2025 edition of this exercise.

Revenue alone would put the Buckeyes seventh or eighth, but their average figures are weighed down by a 2023 season that featured only six home games. We put more stock in the fact that Ohio State’s football revenue jumped almost $50 million during the 2024 national-title run and the fact that the program is recession-proof (still only two losing seasons since 1967). The Buckeyes’ power isn’t tied to one coach or one era, which makes them a safer investment than some other programs in this tier. It also helps explain why Ohio State’s figure grew the most of any other team.

Rounding out the top five are Notre Dame ($2.1 billion), Michigan ($2 billion) and Georgia ($1.95 billion), while Alabama ($1.8 billion), Oklahoma ($1.6 billion), USC ($1.6 billion), Tennessee ($1.57 billion) and Penn State ($1.4 billion) complete the top 10.

Feel free to take Ohio State’s valuation and flex on fans of those programs. Michigan, Notre Dame and Tennessee are especially fun targets. The Wolverines are obvious, the Irish because of their more expensive jersey patch sponsorship, and the Volunteers because — well, a lot has happened recently.

The Big Ten is well represented near the top of Baker’s list, with two programs in the top five and seven in the top 15. Here’s where all 18 Big Ten teams rank:

  • No. 2 - Ohio State ($2.3 billion)
  • No. 4 - Michigan ($2 billion)
  • No. 7 (tie) - USC ($1.6 billion)
  • No. 10 - Penn State ($1.4 billion)
  • No. 13 - Oregon ($1.13 billion)
  • No. 15 (tie) - Nebraska ($1.06 billion)
  • No. 15 (tie) - Washington ($1.06 billion)
  • No. 19 - Wisconsin ($922 million)
  • No. 21 - Iowa ($806 million)
  • No. 22 - Indiana ($696 million)
  • No. 24 - Michigan State ($686 million)
  • No. 28 - Minnesota ($629 million)
  • No. 30 - Illinois ($568 million)
  • No. 36 - Northwestern ($498 million)
  • No. 39 - Purdue ($450 million)
  • No. 45 - UCLA ($363 million)
  • No. 46 - Maryland ($359 million)
  • No. 52 - Rutgers ($314 million)

The biggest takeaway? Ohio State is not simply one of the biggest brands in college football — it is one of the sport’s most valuable assets. The Buckeyes’ $2.3 billion valuation reflects decades of success, stability and a fan base that continues to make Ohio State one of the safest bets in the sport.

 HE DID WHAT NOW? I love Matt Patricia.

On the latest episode of the Downs 2 Business podcast, Caleb Downs revealed that Patricia had an interesting way of introducing himself to Ohio State’s players after Ryan Day hired him as the Buckeyes’ defensive coordinator in 2025.

“First day, he got in the meeting, he was like, ‘Hey guys, we’re going to hand out these sheets of paper. I want you to write down the best five players on this defense and the worst five players on this defense,’” Downs said.

“He’s like, ‘If you say yourself, and a coach doesn’t say you, you’re lying.’”

“Worst five is crazy,” said Josh Downs, Caleb’s brother.

It is crazy.

But it’s also why I love Patricia.

It takes a certain level of confidence to walk into a room and demand an activity that could immediately create division within a team. It helps when that confidence comes from winning three Super Bowls as the defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots and spending three seasons as the head coach of the Detroit Lions.

After his tenure with the Lions, Patricia returned to New England, where he spent two seasons as a senior football advisor. During that time, he worked with 2015 NFL MVP Cam Newton, who was the Patriots’ quarterback in 2020 and a guest on the Downs’ podcast last week.

Newton understood why Patricia had his players complete the exercise.

“Matt Patricia comes from the cloth of accountability,” Newton said. “When you’re seeing how or why they win, that’s the reason. ... You don’t have no ability to backtalk what’s wrong. Man, pipe down, you wrong, bro!”

Ohio State’s defense was already elite during its national championship run in 2024. Somehow, Patricia elevated the unit even further in 2025 despite losing key contributors like Jack Sawyer, Tyleik Williams, Ty Hamilton, JT Tuimoloau, Cody Simon, Denzel Burke, Jordan Hancock and Lathan Ransom from the year before.

Last fall, Ohio State ranked No. 1 nationally in total defense (219.1 yards allowed per game) and scoring defense (9.3 points allowed per game). The Buckeyes never allowed more than 17 points to an opposing offense, with Miami’s 24 points in the Cotton Bowl coming in part because of a Keionte Scott pick-six.

After Ohio State sent another haul of defensive players to the NFL — including three top-11 picks in Arvell Reese, Sonny Styles and Caleb Downs — Patricia will have a difficult task trying to match what he accomplished in 2025. But if there’s one thing his career has shown, it’s that Patricia knows how to get the most out of talented players. And at Ohio State, talented players are never in short supply.

 THEY DID WHAT NOW? Ohio State hit Front Office Sports with what might be the fastest Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response of all-time.

After Ohio State announced Chase Bank as its jersey patch sponsor on Tuesday, Front Office Sports' Amanda Christovich filed a public records request for a copy of the university's agreement with JPMorganChase. Within minutes, she received a response stating Ohio State does not have a copy of the contract.

Why?

Because the agreement is technically between Chase Bank and Learfield, the college sports marketing company that represents Ohio State.

That's quite the loophole.

Unless Learfield decides to open its books, Ohio State's exact payday will remain a mystery. At least we have a pretty good idea of the ballpark, as ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported Tuesday that the Buckeyes should yield $17 million annually from the black and white patches.

 SONG OF THE DAY. "Chicago" - Michael Jackson.

 CUT TO THE CHASE. Rotten fish sauce that has long stunk up a small Canadian town is finally being removed... Private mission to rescue NASA’s aging telescope runs into its own trouble... Blue Jackets to simulcast games on TV and radio beginning with 2026-27 season... CBS NFL analyst Tony Romo arrested on suspicion of OWI...  Nebraska football players to receive $7.5M from NIL deals that were once denied by CSC.

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