Guerry Clegg: SEC or Big Ten, which is the best conference?

John Lilly, the Georgia assistant coach in charge of kickoff coverages, had preached all season about the monotonous rehearsals of recovering on-sides kicks. All that preparation finally paid off against Auburn when Malcolm Mitchell fielded Daniel Carlson's kick, tucked it away and secured the victory.

"These things don't matter," Lilly often told the players, "until they matter."

So it is with bowl games. Other than allowing fans to stretch the college football season out just a little bit longer, most bowl games are pretty much meaningless. Contrary to the cliches, they don't provide momentum for the offseason. They're generally not an accurate measure of teams or of conferences.

That is, until they become the only measure.

Remember the 2008 season? It became fashionable to say that the Big 12 had overtaken the SEC as the premier conference. The SEC's run of national titles that would expand to seven was merely at two. This was before Florida won its second national championship in three seasons, and before Alabama and Auburn won the next four national championships.

Going into the bowl games, the Big 12 had become the flavor of the month. Five teams spent time in the top 10. Three teams in the top seven of the BCS rankings and five in the top 25.

The SEC won the only two head-to-head meetings -- Florida beating Oklahoma in the national championship game, and Ole Miss upsetting Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl. Overall, the SEC went 6-2 in bowl games, which the Big 12 was just 4-3.

That was the last time anyone questioned the SEC's preeminence. Until this season. Actually, until late last season to be more accurate. Then came the final weekend of November, when the ACC swept four games from the SEC. That was followed by the bowl season humbling, when the top five teams from the supposedly mighty SEC West all lost. Arkansas and Texas A&M, along with five teams from the SEC East, all won their bowl games to some

what save the conference's collective face.

The biggest loss, in terms of conference cred goes, was Alabama getting beat by Ohio State in the playoff semifinals.

So far this season, the SEC has been rather underwhelming. Yes, Alabama is back in the playoff against Michigan State. But after the Crimson Tide, there's a steep drop-off. Four teams have three losses each -- Florida, Ole Miss, Georgia and LSU. Ole Miss is the second-highest ranked SEC team at No. 16 in the AP poll. Unless the Rebels make a steep climb, this season will mark the first time since the 2002 season that the SEC had only one team in the AP's final top 10. The last time the SEC had only one team in the final top 15 was 2000, when Florida finished No. 10 and Auburn No. 18.

"Our league is a tough league," said Alabama coach Nick Saban. "We beat each other up. People say, 'You don't have many ranked teams this year.' Well, it's because we beat each other up. When we played a lot of teams this year they were ranked in the top 15, top 10. They aren't now because they all have to play each other."

That's usually the case. Whether it holds true this season depends on what happens in the bowl games.

Even in a relative down season, the SEC might still be the best conference in college football. Its non-conference winning percentage of .818 is the best of the Power Five conferences, just a shade better than the Big 10's .768.

"But they haven't played anybody," critics will say.

Not true. The SEC's strength of schedule is the best in college football, according to realtimeRPI.com. The problem is the SEC has lost most of these tough games -- Tennessee to Oklahoma, Florida to Florida State, South Carolina to Clemson. The SEC has only one credible non-conference win -- Alabama over Wisconsin. But that also holds true for the Big 10. Northwestern beat Stanford, which indirectly pushed Michigan State into the playoff over Stanford.

The Big 10's next most meaningful win was Michigan State over Oregon, which has four losses. The Big 10 could finish with four teams in the top 10. Iowa is No. 6, Ohio State No. 7 and Northwestern No. 12.

So much of it is perception. The perception is that the Big 10 has surpassed the SEC. Some would even say the SEC is weak, noting Georgia's struggle to beat Georgia Southern and Florida nearly losing to Florida Atlantic. The SEC has three tiers. There's Alabama at the top, and four fairly awful teams at the bottom -- Missouri, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and South Carolina. There's not much difference in the other nine teams.

The offenses are rather offensive. That's partly because quarterback play has been so poor. But it's also because the SEC is still the best defensive league.

All that's subject to change with the bowl games. The Big 10 and SEC have four head-to-head meetings, beginning with Alabama-Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl. Alabama must win that game for the SEC to have any credible argument to being the best conference.

Then on New Year's Day, Tennessee plays Northwestern in the Outback Bowl while Florida plays Michigan in the Citrus Bowl The next day, Georgia plays Penn State in the TaxSlayer Bowl. The SEC needs to win two of those three games.

Then each conference has six other bowl games.

If the SEC places a team in the national championship game, holds the head-to-head lead, and has a better overall bowl record, that should prove once again that it's the superior league. If not, there can be no denying the evidence.

-- Guerry Clegg is an independent correspondent. You can write to him at sports@ledger-enquirer.com

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 8:35 PM with the headline "Guerry Clegg: SEC or Big Ten, which is the best conference? ."