Three months ago I wrote my first blog, mentioning I resided in the heart of SEC country. I admit to having a bias towards the SEC, in fact, I’m convinced the SEC is the best football conference in America. However, I further mentioned I wasn’t so nearsighted that I didn’t recognize other teams and conferences play a respectable brand of football. I LOVE college football; I can get as much enjoyment watching Michigan-Ohio State as I can the Iron Bowl.

I’ve been amazed at the fierceness of which bloggers discuss the best teams and conferences, and why everyone was wasting their time doing so. It became clear to me 10 years ago, as it did for all of my SEC homers; the SEC is and will continue to be the most dominant football conference in the nation. However, it appears that only among the fans do the great debates take place. At times I see comments from those responding to an article stating the SEC is overrated. WHAT?! Are you kidding me? So in an effort to put this myth of the SEC being overrated to bed, I decided to take a very deep look into the world of college football.

Ultimately, I agree the end results are settled on the field, as they should be. But I don’t believe you can measure a conference by a won-loss record. There are many factors determining the true measure of a conference that go well beyond the playing field. Records versus other BCS conferences, attendance, recruiting, TV/radio contracts and ratings, corporate sponsorships and revenue are the primary areas of focus for the purpose of supporting my argument. Historical data in some cases can only be generated from the past two years when statistics or records began being tracked. By the time we’re done you’ll have no questions and thankfully, no comments to support your position. 

One of the “overrated” arguments I’ve heard is the SEC doesn’t play a competitive non-conference schedule. The realities of college football have shifted over the past decade, where an additional regular season game and potential conference championship game will give some teams as many as 14 games to play during the season. Teams from the BCS conferences have recognized that playing a conference schedule without a loss is becoming more unlikely. Factor in the 85 scholarship limit for every team and parity has become the norm in college football.

Teams simply can’t afford to schedule more than two games against non-conference BCS opponents and expect to have a realistic opportunity to win a BCS Championship. Moreover, virtually every team from the BCS conferences has scheduled their one or two non-conference BCS opponents well in advance. Please read this article I wrote late last year for a list of some BCS teams that have scheduled their major non-conference BCS opponents. As you can see, most teams are going to play one major non-conference BCS opponent, two or three non-BCS opponents and then play their conference schedule, giving them their 12 game total.

Let’s start with records, the SEC against all other BCS conferences. I compiled this list of SEC teams against non-conference BCS opponents, including Notre Dame, over the past 10 seasons from 1998 through this past season. In addition, these records include bowl games against non-conference BCS opponents.  As you can clearly see, the SEC has the superior winning percentage against all other BCS conferences.

                         SEC      ACC      Big East     Big 12     Big 10     Pac 10

Games              191        217      181             174          215         182

Wins                103        102       85               83           113          88

Losses              88         115       96               91           102          94

Percentage  .5392%   .4700%    .4696%       .4770%     .5235%   .4835%

If 10 years of data didn’t appease you, I decided to take a look at the SEC against all other BCS conferences from 1990 through this past season. Oddly enough, only the Big East has an advantage against the SEC in head-to-head match ups over the past 18 seasons, adjusted for realignments.

SEC vs. ACC            71-53-2          .5634%

SEC vs. Big East      14-19-0          .4242%

SEC vs. Big 12        20-18-0          .5263%

SEC vs. Big 10        67-47-2          .5775%

SEC vs. Pac 10        59-37-5          .5841%

I’ve mentioned these figures include bowl games, so let’s look specifically at the bowl records of each BCS conference. These are all-time bowl records since each conference was formed, and adjusted for realignments.

                        Bowls    Wins   Losses    Ties    Percentage

SEC                 361         184     164         13       .5287%

Big 12             312         149     160          4        .4837%

ACC                276          143    128          5        .5276%

Big 10             234         114     117          3        .4935%

Pac 10            220          112     102          6       .5233%

Big East          105          48       54           2       .4660%

Since 1998 the BCS has crowned its champion using a formula to determine a match up of the No.1 and No. 2 ranked teams. For the record, the BCS by no means is the best method to arrive at a true national champion, and I’m a strong proponent of a playoff. However, based on the current method, the SEC has won the most BCS championships since 1998.

SEC - 4

ACC -1

Big 12 - 2

Big 10 - 1

Pac 10 - 1 – Southern California was BCS Champion in 2004, shared titled (AP) in 2003.

Big East - 1 

Let’s turn our attention to attendance figures. On the surface attendance may not appear to be a relevant factor in determining conference superiority. However, attendance is vital in the areas of revenue generation, TV contract negotiations and recruiting, all of which are important elements in determining a conference’s strength.

For the past 10 seasons from 1998 through this past season, the SEC has led in total home game attendance. The most recent figures from this past season can be viewed by clicking here.  The SEC has five of the top 10, and nine of the top 25 schools. The Big 10 has six schools in the top 25, the Big 12 four, the Pac 10 three, and the ACC two. Notre Dame was the only school without a conference affiliation to appear, rounding out the top 25.

To view past attendance figures from 2001 until 2006, please click the following links.

2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.

In order to achieve this level of success you need talented players, and the search for those players is a never ending process. The recruitment of the nation’s best high school football players is exhaustive, and for the past seven years, including this year, the SEC has recruited more nationally ranked players than any other conference. You can search Scout or Rivals by clicking on team rankings, and then clicking on conference rankings to view a list from 2002 to the present.

Television ratings are a huge component in the success of a conference. Greater ratings provide the conference a stronger bargaining position in negotiating future TV contracts. With greater revenue received through contracts with the networks, conference schools can fund other non-revenue producing sports, among a host of other uses. The SEC is the only conference guaranteed a national game of the week on free network television through its contract with CBS Sports. The only other BCS affiliated member that can make such a claim is Notre Dame. The SEC is the only conference that can potentially appear on every free television network via regional telecasts, or exclusively on NBC if an SEC team has scheduled a game against Notre Dame. The SEC has television contracts with CBS Sports (national), ESPN (national cable), FSN South/FSN Southwest/SUN Sports (regional cable) and Lincoln Financial Sports (regional syndication).

This past season CBS Sports earned an average national household rating/share for the season of 3.5/8, up 13 percent from a 3.1/7 last year. This 3.5/8 marks the best college football season average for CBS since a 3.7/10 in 1999. CBS Sports was the only network to show a ratings gain for coverage of college football for the 2007 season. The season was capped off by national coverage of the SEC Championship game between Tennessee and LSU, which earned a national household rating/share of 5.9/12, up 31 percent from last year's 4.5/8 for the SEC Championship featuring Florida and Arkansas. The 5.9/12 was the best rating for the SEC Championship game since the 2001 primetime game on CBS, which earned a 7.9/15 rating/share for Tennessee-LSU.

As a result, the SEC disbursed $85.2 million for revenues generated during the 2006/2007 regular and bowl seasons to its member schools through revenue received from its TV contract with CBS, including the SEC Championship game, and all bowl game revenue. No other conference generated a greater amount of football revenue than the SEC. Figures for the 2007/2008 regular and bowl seasons have yet to be released.

SEC fans across the continental United States can tune in to SEC sports on XM satellite radio. XM recently signed a five-year agreement with the SEC to carry games and special programming nationwide. During this past season, XM carried the most SEC games on the radio with coast-to-coast live broadcasts of Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, and Tennessee football. South Carolina will join XM in fall 2008, followed by Florida in fall 2009.

The SEC was the first conference to establish an extensive presence on the internet. The conference's main web site, SECsports.com, contains the latest information on all of the league's sports and championships and also has the latest video and audio features from the conference.

The SEC corporate sponsor program began in 1988 with three companies dedicated to intercollegiate athletics and higher education. Now supported by many of the nation’s top corporations, this program has evolved into the most successful of its kind. The corporations also conduct consumer promotions designed to increase sales and brand awareness. These promotions also increase public awareness of the member institutions of the SEC, which in turn supports increased ticket sales and high television and radio ratings.

In addition to the broad spectrum of benefits provided by these contributions, each SEC institution is a direct beneficiary of the program. SEC Corporate sponsors include AT&T, Dr Pepper and Quaker State, Air Tran Airways, BC Powder, Chick-fil-A, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Eckrich, Gatorade, Golden Flake, Nissan, Regions Bank, State Farm Insurance, Texas Pete and XM Satellite Radio.

Let’s talk about money. We all know big time college football is really big business. So big in fact, the major programs around the country generate millions each year. I wrote an article that can be viewed here listing the top 20 revenue producing programs in college football. In addition this list includes the profit generated from these revenues. These are the latest figures released annually by Forbes Magazine and as you will note, the SEC has eight programs in the top 20, more than any other conference in America.

As if all of this weren’t enough to convince you and settle this debate forever, this recent article appearing in USA Today this past November should dispel any notions of other conferences being superior to the SEC.

The debate is as old as college football itself: Where are the best teams? With the increased importance of conferences in the latter part of the 20th century, the focus could be narrowed. Over the years, some leagues have grown, some have disappeared, but the argument remains. Deciding which league has been tops might be only a matter of opinion.

From week to week this season it has been difficult to determine which college football teams are the best in the nation. There has been far less debate over which conference has been tops in the Bowl Championship Series era. Through all the chaos, controversy, unexpected outcomes, pleas for a playoff and tweaks to the BCS formula the past decade, the Southeastern Conference stands as the best Division I-A league.

A USA Today/Gallup Poll favors the SEC, with 30 percent of respondents saying the conference, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary, has been the best of the past decade. The nationwide survey was conducted Nov. 2-4, asking more than 500 respondents classifying themselves as college football fans.

"Top to bottom, the SEC has been that conference long-term," says Fox and Big Ten Network football analyst Charles Davis, a former defensive back at Tennessee. ESPN analyst Lou Holtz, who most recently coached at South Carolina, gives credit to the Pacific-10 for scheduling an extra league game when the NCAA began allowing 12-game schedules. He thinks Pac-10 offenses are more advanced than what is typically the case in the SEC. But in the end, Holtz gives the nod to the SEC as the best.

"The first part of the year, you can be doing good, but you just get beat up week after week in that league," says Holtz, who also coached in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Ten, the old Southwest Conference and at independent Notre Dame. "And it's a religion down there, just a passion. We never had an empty seat at (South Carolina). We'd be 11th in the country in attendance and sixth in the SEC."

CBS football analyst Gary Danielson, who played at Purdue, believes the SEC and Big Ten look like the "co-best leagues" over time. But he says the SEC, traditionally, has been stellar. "The top 30 or 40 teams, in a one-game situation, could beat each other," says Danielson, who earlier in his broadcasting career analyzed games for ABC and ESPN. "But the SEC is tougher with the most NFL players and the most history of (fans) going to games. Its 75 years of tradition and the away games are brutal.” "It's not that all the teams are always great, but it's that football means a lot. Even Kentucky sells out every game. So it's very important to the kids who grow up in (the SEC's region) and to the fans who go." Danielson thinks the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-10 are on a different level than the ACC and Big East.

ESPN analyst Lee Corso believes the SEC has been the best league of the past decade but says the Pac-10 is tops this season.

"The skill-position players in the Pac-10, particularly at quarterback, make it the best this year," Corso says. Florida's Tim Tebow "is the best quarterback in the SEC, but nobody else is really that close to some of the quarterbacks in the Pac-10."

The Pac-10 "has modern offenses and skilled athletes," Corso says. "But over the long period, the SEC has been dominant because of speed on defense."

As Davis points out, such debates are sometimes not easily resolved, especially considering what has been in evidence in recent seasons. "Any team can jump up," Davis says. "Look at Mississippi State, Connecticut, Cincinnati—even Rutgers had a chance at the whole deal late last season, and they ended up in the Texas Bowl. “It's a razor's edge of a difference sometimes.”

So, are you satisfied now? What could you possibly say to refute the evidence? I’m confident many of you will attempt to offer an argument, but frankly, you’ll be exercising a lesson in futility. Get your heads wrapped around these undisputed facts and stop wasting your breath and my time. Besides, the sooner you resign yourselves to the truth, it will make you feel better because you’ll no longer have to worry about which conference is truly the best. That conference is the SEC.