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SEC needs to win bowl, recruiting seasons to stay ahead of the Big Ten
By John Hollis
Published:
The SEC is the best conference in all of college football — or an overrated one that continues to reap the dividends of success from years past.
Point of view can be a subjective thing, but the college football bowl season will likely bring a little more clarity to the best conference debate, as the SEC and resurgent Big Ten clash four times this postseason, most notably in the Cotton Bowl national semifinal.
“We’ll have to wait and see how the bowls go,” ESPN on-air personality Chris Fowler said recently. “The bowls are valid ways to judge each conference.”
How the bowl season shakes out could go a long ways toward recruiting and will play a key role in the perceived superiority of one league over the other.
The Big Ten boasts reigning champion Ohio State, which upset Alabama in last year’s national semifinal. The league may have had more depth from top to bottom than any other conference this season.
“It was a terrific year for the Big Ten,” Fowler said. “They had some outstanding, high-quality wins.”
The SEC, again paced by the Crimson Tide, is easily the most talent-rich of all conferences with great speed and skill at most positions, as evidenced by recent NFL Drafts.
“There’s no shortage of competition in the SEC,” said Auburn kicker Daniel Carlson, whose Tigers will face Memphis in the Birmingham Bowl on Dec. 30. “You can’t have an average game in the SEC and get away with it.”
The Goodyear Cotton Bowl is perhaps the most anticipated game of the postseason because it is a national semifinal that will pit SEC champion Alabama against Big Ten champion Michigan State.
The winner advances to the Jan. 11 National Championship game in Glendale, Arizona.
Other Big Ten/SEC showdowns include the Outback Bowl that will match Northwestern against Tennessee; the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl, which will pit Michigan against Florida; and the TaxSlayer Bowl that will see Penn St. face off against Georgia.
Fair or unfair, the results of those games will likely shape national perceptions, and that could be the difference in recruiting as National Signing Day looms closer and blue-chip high school recruits begin finalizing their decisions.
The SEC boasts six of the top recruiting classes in the country, according to the latest 247Sports review. The Big Ten lists three in the Top 10, including No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Michigan.
The SEC’s unprecedented run of producing seven consecutive national champions ended with Florida State’s 34-31 win over Auburn to cap the 2013 season.
The conference’s subsequent mediocre 7-5 bowl record last season featured a disappointing 2-5 record by its seven ranked teams, including losses by the top-ranked Crimson Tide, No. 7 Mississippi State and ninth-ranked Ole Miss.
The disappointing performance prompted open assertions that the SEC’s best days were behind it.
Not so, say conference supporters. Now it’s time for Alabama and its colleagues to prove as much.
John Hollis is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers Georgia and Florida.
