Which conference plays the best college football in the nation? Well, for most college football fans, this is an easy answer: The one that my favorite team plays in – that’s which one.
College football has the most passionate, loyal fans in the nation and it’s hard to persuade them to look outside their own back yard and appreciate what other conferences bring to the table.
If you’re a Big Ten fan, then the Big Ten is the best conference in the nation – bar none. No other conference plays the physical brand of football that the Big Ten does. Speed? Forget speed. If you want real football, then the Big Ten is the only conference that offers the horses in the trenches to play real, smash-mouth football.
If you’re a Pac-10 fan, it’s kind of hard to argue how fast USC, California and Oregon typical plays. Real teams spread defenses out and throw the ball vertically. Smash-mouth football? Sorry, those days are over.
And how about the Big 12? It’s kind of hard to argue what that conference brought to the table last year with the likes of Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech, Missouri and Kansas. Any one of those teams were capable of hanging 50 points on an opponent during any given week and Colt McCoy, Sam Bradford and Graham Harrell provided the best collection of quarterbacks in the nation. Even though the conference is often criticized for not playing defense, keep in mind that some of the best pro defenders come out of programs like Texas and Oklahoma.
One could make an argument that any one of the conferences listed above is the best in the nation. But if you were to take a step back and look at this topic from an unbiased point of view, the answer to this question is pretty easy.
The SEC plays the best football year in and year out – period.
Whether it’s Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State or Iowa, the Big Ten usually produces two or three teams a year that are head and shoulders above other teams in the conference. The rest is filled with average to slightly above average squads that may or may not make a run for half a season before eventually crashing to earth.
It’s the same in the Pac-10. USC has dominated the conference for years and while a program like Cal is starting to emerge as an elite contender, this conference still produced a winless team last year in Washington. Forget the Huskies shocking win over the Trojans last Saturday for a second; they were winless last year. Winless.
The hot notion last year was that the Big 12 had overtaken the SEC as the best conference in college football because fans liked watching those teams light up the scoreboard. Fans get attracted by the high scores and equate that to the Big 12 having the best teams.
But don’t be confused by all the lights and sound that come with the Big 12 – that conference is still seriously flawed. Look at a team like Oklahoma State, which could score on any given drive but they also have to given that their defense is going to allow their opponent to march right up the field. And while the conference offers the stiffest challenge to the SEC, it still pales in comparison from top to bottom.
Don’t get it twisted, other conferences like the Big 12 are catching up. But no conference has better speed, defense and coaching than the SEC. Even cupcakes like Vanderbilt and Mississippi State offer a challenge just based on their defenses.
You want the biggest proof that the SEC is still the dominant conference in college football? Look at the BCS national championship games.
Since the BCS started crowning a mythical national champion (I say mythical because the system is a joke, but that’s another subject for another time), the SEC has won five out of the 11 titles and three in the last three years. The only other conference to come close to that is the Big 12, which has had two national champions since 1998 (Oklahoma in 2000 and Texas in 2005).
Someone could make the argument that when the SEC doesn’t win the title game, it’s because it doesn’t even make the title game. But I would counter that by noting that SEC teams play the toughest schedules in the nation and getting through a season unscathed is harder to do then keeping Lane Kiffin’s mouth shut for more than two seconds.
When the SEC makes the title game, it’s won the title game. Other conferences just can’t stack up on a consistent basis and if you take off your Big Ten, Pac-10 or Big 12 goggles for a minute or two, you might just see that.
Anthony Stalter
