Big Ten is deeper than we thought; SEC is worst it's been in years

Published Nov. 11, 2015 3:23 p.m. ET

Stewart Mandel

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Stewart Mandel's Nov. 11 Mailbag. For his full Mailbag, click here, and to submit a question for next week, email Stewart.Mandel@fox.com.

Stewart, most seem to think that the Big Ten is the fourth-best conference behind the SEC, Pac-12 and Big 12. Now that the Big Ten has the most teams in the AP Top 25, will it finally get the respect it deserves?

-- Adam, New York City

No question the Big Ten has proved a deeper conference than most expected this season. Ohio State and Michigan State were expected to be very good, Wisconsin about where it is, but never would I have predicted seeing Iowa in the Top 10, Michigan in the Top 15 and Northwestern in the Top 25 in November. The bottom tier of the conference -- Purdue, Maryland, Rutgers, Minnesota -- is most responsible for dragging down the conference's overall reputation, but have you seen this year's SEC East? Not even the staunchest SEC apologist could argue that division is any better than the Big Ten West.

In fact, I'd like to take this opportunity to formally state for the record that this year's SEC is the worst I've seen since pre-2006 (the first of the seven straight BCS title seasons). Seemingly half the teams are in some state of dysfunction. There may be more SEC fan bases that want their coach and/or at least one coordinator fired than don't. The quarterback play is worse than I ever imagined it could be. And while Alabama and Florida have legit dominant defenses, it's hard to play the "but we play great defense" card when the next-best after that belong to sub-.500 Vanderbilt and Missouri teams.

Even then, though, I'd be hard-pressed to say the Big Ten or any other league is definitively better. All we have to go by is the limited sample size from non-conference play, and the SEC at .619 still has the best record. Second, though? The Big Ten (.612).

Stewart Mandel is a senior college sports columnist for FOXSports.com. He covered college football and basketball for 15 years at Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter @slmandel and Facebook. Send emails and Mailbag questions to Stewart.Mandel@fox.com.