While Bobby’s article did provide our readership with some convincing arguments as to why the Big Ten reigns supreme, it is obvious that he failed to acknowledge and mention some of the most important factors in what makes a conference a true “powerhouse.”

The first discrepancy in Bobby’s football argument is the fact that he only decided to talk about the SEC’s performance in bowl games over the past two years. With such a small sample size, it is unfair to make the controversial conclusion that the Big Ten is the better football conference. Bobby’s disillusion began by failing to acknowledge that the SEC has only had two losing bowl seasons since 2006 and has also won nine national championships by FOUR (LSU, Alabama, Auburn, Florida) different teams during that tenure.  

Bobby quickly proceeded to bash one of the SEC’s middle tier teams and aggressively claimed that “the league as a whole tends to be deeper and more productive come Bowl season.” Sure, the Big Ten went 7-1 last year in bowl games but they only went 1-1 against the SEC.  Also, having two teams in the College Football Playoff meant that the SEC’s third, fourth, and fifth best teams were playing in bowl games typically reserved for the first, second and third best SEC teams. Not every bowl game is created equal and Bobby purposely skipped acknowledging the fact that the Big Ten was favored heavily in six of the seven bowl games they won. The SEC, on the other hand, was only favored in five games and ultimately ended up winning five games. This is all without mentioning the SEC had more bowl eligible teams than the Big Ten.

Furthermore, Bobby brashly dismissed the importance of rankings and strength of schedule based off of the so proclaimed “SEC bias” that was presented with little to no sufficient evidence. Ignorantly casting aside meaningful measurements like rankings and strength of schedule turns this into an emotional argument where the only thing that matters is opinions.

If you matched up the most recent SEC power rankings with the most recent Big Ten power rankings, I can confidently say the SEC would at least finish 9-5 if not better.

*******UPDATE*******

My predictions and assertions have begun to become true as Auburn trounced Purdue to the scoreline of 63-14 and Florida effortlessly dismissed Michigan by a score of 41-15. Scorelines like these are much more telling than delving back into previous years bowl records where Big Ten-SEC head to head matchups were scarce.   

Sure, Alabama’s subpar performance in the College Football Playoff gave leeway to some SEC heckling in the halls but those heckles were easily dismissed with a quick reminder that Clemson actually is not a Big Ten team.

With five teams finishing in the top 12, the SEC has proved their college football dominance once more. Even in a down year with a .500 winning percentage in bowl games, the SEC still managed to beat up on it’s Big Ten counterparts.

At the end of the day, there is no reasonable or sane argument that any conference trumps the SEC in football. Let us not forget that the acronym SEC actually stands for “Superior to Every other Conference.” It doesn’t matter how you twist it or look at it, SEC football is clearly a different brand. It just means more.