Big 10 Football: Alabama's Win over Michigan Shows SEC Still Way Ahead of Big 10

Alabama ran Michigan off the field in college football’s marquee matchup this weekend. This proves that there is still a large gap between the SEC and the Big 10.

With the Wolverines ranking at No. 8 in the AP Top 25 poll, they were the considered the class of the Big 10 heading into the year. Likewise, Alabama at No. 2 was the highest-ranked SEC team.

The best of these two conferences met for what was supposed to be an epic showdown. However, the Crimson Tide ended up beating Michigan by the same 41-14 score line that LSU recorded to defeat North Texas.

This game was never close. Alabama started the game with 31 unanswered points, taking a 31-7 lead into halftime.

Michigan’s Heisman Trophy candidate, Denard Robinson, was limited to 11-of-26 on his throwing attempts. He threw for 200 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions while also earning 27 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries.

The SEC is universally considered to be the best conference in football, and few would have argued that the Big 10 would take this title even if Michigan won this game. But looking at preseason Top-25 poll, one could reasonably assume that the Big 10 was close to being as competitive as the SEC. 

The SEC had five teams in the Top 10 of the Associate Press’ inaugural 2012 rankings. The Big 10 had five teams in the Top 20.

However, this game proved conclusively that the best team from the Midwest cannot come close to the best team from the Southeast.

Maybe the game would have been different had Fitzgerald Toussaint not been suspended for the Wolverines. It is also certainly possible that Michigan will not be considered the best team in the Big 10 by the end of the season.

Still, this is one of the top programs from each conference. If the Big 10 and SEC were anywhere close to each other in terms of the level of competition, this game should have been a reasonably close affair. But that was not the case on Saturday.

Alabama’s dominance over Michigan proves that the gap between the Big 10 and the SEC has not become any smaller since last season.