Big Ten head coach says what everyone is thinking about SEC's superiority complex

The SEC will always claim it's the best college athletics conference, especially in college football. However, the evidence actually points to the Big Ten usurping it on the gridiron after three consecutive seasons of its members lifting the national championship trophy.

Illinois head coach Bret Bielema has a unique perspective on the situation having formerly coached the Arkansas Razorbacks from 2006-17. He didn't mince words when trying to explain why the SEC is so stubborn about its campaign to be treated as the eternal kings of the sport despite recent poor postseason performances.

"They kind of want to live in 2005 forever," Bielema casually jabbed. "Anything to pre-date [NIL and the transfer portal] is a different time in college football ... it's a different world [now]."

Bielema cited the conference's pride in its history being the source of its unyielding desire for questionless respect. It's proud it can claim 20 national champions in the last 50 years (not including new members Texas or Oklahoma), including multiple stretches of four or more consecutive years with a member earning the title. However, he warned the SEC's stubbornness is also rooted in the deification of that legacy.

The SEC's superiority complex is rooted in living in the past

Football is a religion down South. The success and failures of SEC teams is almost as serious as life or death to the fans. That's a direct result of placing the programs, players and coaches on an unrealistic podium. When the standard of perennial championship contention isn't met, the veil shielding fans from the reality their heroes are human begins to rapidly recede.

The SEC has, in fact, been dominant over the course of the last half century. But when the body of work is reduced to the modern era, that invincibility becomes more of a charade. Over the last 20 years, an SEC team won the title 13 times -- but six of those were won by a Nick Saban-led Alabama. That's the era Bielema correctly believes the conference is stuck living in.

The NIL, transfer portal, expanded College Football Playoff era has put the SEC on equal footing (or as close to it as it's ever been) with the rest of the sport. The selection committee is rewarding teams that win and finally using the same logic against the SEC that it used to argue against multi-bid inclusions for the Big 12 and Pac-12 for the longest time.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has complained about the league moving from its original 8-game in-conference scheduling model to a 9-game model. He claims his teams are so good, those in the top half of the standings are bound to have multiple losses and shouldn't be penalized by the committee for having touch schedules. Newsflash, that's the same standard that kept two-loss Big 12 and Pac-12 champions from qualifying for the old four-team playoff (see Alabama's controversial inclusion in the 2021-22 bracket).

The SEC needs to look in a mirror and realize the college football world is not trying to convince it the storied conference has fallen behind but rather the Big Ten and some of the rest of the Power Conferences have caught up. That should be extra motivation to accept the new challenge of the modern college football environment instead of continuing to whine about the good old days when every structure advantaged it.

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