Sports

It’s Time To Get Real – The Big Ten Is The Best Football Conference

(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

David Hookstead Sports And Entertainment Editor
Font Size:

The Big Ten is the best football conference in America.

For years we have been led to believe the SEC ruled the college football scene. They were like America on the world stage. There is the USA and then there is everybody else. For a long time that was the truth. The SEC won every single football championship between 2006 and 2012. It was an incredibly impressive streak, but the the landscape of college football has finally changed.

The SEC’s days of domination are over, and have been for a couple years now. The Big Ten’s rise to the top has been fascinating to watch, and the reasons for the ascension are pretty easy to understand. The Big Ten went out and brought in great coaches, they scored massive television deals and the extra money soon resulted in better facilities and recruiting ability than the rest of the country.

It wasn’t too long ago when the only great teams in the Big Ten were Wisconsin and Michigan State. Ohio State was in shambles after scandals, Michigan had dropped off the map and Penn State’s child molestation scandal had brought the football program to the brink of destruction.

(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

NEW ORLEANS, LA – JANUARY 01: Head coach Urban Meyer of the Ohio State Buckeyes looks on prior to the All State Sugar Bowl against the Alabama Crimson Tide at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on January 1, 2015 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

It was a dark time for the conference and its fans. People in the Midwest pride themselves on their ability to crush it at life as much as they can crush it at the party. We don’t tolerate failure, but our football conference looked like it was on the fast track to irrelevancy.

That all changed with Urban Meyer showed up at Ohio State, Jim Harbaugh came to Michigan and James Franklin pulled Penn State back from the edge. Wisconsin was no longer sitting alone at the top of the Big Ten. It was now a foursome. The Buckeyes are 61-6 under Meyer’s tutelage, with one national championship and another undefeated season. Michigan and Penn State are both contenders again.

Meanwhile, the SEC has collapsed. The perennial powers of Ole Miss, Georgia, Arkansas and South Carolina have all dropped off the map. South Carolina might be swinging upwards, but nobody will take them seriously until they prove they’ve turned it around.

In the meantime, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan and Penn State will continue to run college football. What a great time to be alive.

Follow David on Twitter