Washington doesn't join the Big Ten until the 2024 college football season. But based on Esthen ExchangeMonday comments from new athletic director Troy Dannen, the Huskies already are willing to mix it up with their future conference opponents: especially, it seems, Ohio State.

Dannen made that point perfectly clear in his first interview as the Huskies' athletic director, telling Seattle sports radio station 93.3 KJR that big budgets don't win games; people do. And he made his point at the expense of some of the biggest spenders in college athletics.

"If budgets won championships, Ohio State and Texas would win everything − and they haven't won much lately," Dannen said, according to Mike Vorel of the Seattle Times.

Dannen's random shot came as part of an interview in which he espoused the necessity to embrace the use of Name Image and Likeness (NIL) in helping build up athletic programs. To his point, Ohio State and Texas are by far the two biggest spenders in college athletics, according to USA TODAY's June revenue and expense report.

Still, choosing to single out one of the top teams of your future conference is a curious decision. Nor is his assertion that Ohio State "hasn't won much" − presumably because it hasn't won the Big Ten in either of the last two years − accurate.

Since the 2015 college football season (when in December Dannen joined Tulane as its AD), the Buckeyes have the fourth-most wins in college football, with a 95-12 record. Ohio State also has four Big Ten championships in that time, as well as four College Football Playoff berths (including last season).

Dannen, of course, is leaving a Green Wave program that is in the midst of a 4-1 start to the 2023 college football season. Tulane is also coming off one of its best seasons in program history, a 12-2 mark that saw the Green Wave upend Caleb Williams and USC 46-45 in the Cotton Bowl.

Perhaps the Trojans would have been a better target for Dannen's quip, considering they are also jumping ship from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten alongside UCLA, Oregon and the Huskies. Either way, Dannen's comments are out in the air now. And they'll certainly be a point of discussion when Washington takes on Ohio State for the first time in 2025.