College football realignment: Lane Kiffin gives very honest opinion on Big Ten vs. SEC
You can always count on Lane Kiffin saying what's on his mind, and now he's using his platform to declare unequivocally which is the best conference in college football.
The Ole Miss coach used the latest realignment news to make his point, comparing the Texas/Oklahoma move to the SEC to the USC/UCLA one to the Big Ten.
In his mind, there is no comparison.
"I mean, I just say how it is, I don't know that there's a huge jump into the Big Ten," Kiffin said at SEC Media Days.
"I think going to the SEC is a whole 'nother animal. It's a different world. Said it for a long time: the SEC just means more. And it does. It's different, it's ahead of the game."
There's no denying how dominant the SEC has been in recent college football history, winning 12 of the last 16 national championships, including five of the eight titles in the playoff era.
By contrast, the Big Ten has won two national championships in the 21st century, both by Ohio State: in the BCS era (2002) and the first-ever College Football Playoff title.
OSU is also the only Big Ten team to advance past the semifinal, playing in two national title games, losing the other to Alabama in 2020.
Three SEC teams have won the CFP national championship: Alabama in 2015, 2017, and 2020, LSU in 2019, and Georgia in 2021.
In addition, two national title games have featured SEC teams on both sides of the field: Alabama and Georgia faced off in 2017 and 2021.
Ohio State and Clemson are the only two other non-SEC teams that have come close to giving the SEC a real challenge on the field in the College Football Playoff era.
Even with the addition of USC to the Big Ten, it'll take a lot more for any other school or conference to give the SEC a run for its money on the gridiron.
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