The B1G vs SEC: Analysis and Discussion
It's become cliche', so let's look at it.
"SEC teams are afraid to play Big Ten teams up north in December!"
(So are Big 10 teams; the only December games they play up north is the one played indoors, but I digress).
I'm gonna touch on where this nonsensical argument arose a few posts down, but first let's look at the data. Data challenges our assumptions and should inform our conclusions.
I don't do this with any agenda in hand, just an analysis of the actual record. But I also think it's pretty clear that anyone using the excuse, "Those teams won't play road games in December" is someone clearly on the short side of the ledger, too. But let's begin with the founding of the SEC in 1933, which correlates pretty decently with the overall picture given Michigan St didn't join the B1G until 1953.*
1) Both the Big Ten and the SEC have had good football teams through the years and fine traditions - even if you don't like them.
There have been many outstanding teams in both conferences from time to time. There have been great players. Yes, even Illinois had Dick Butkus and Red Grange. The failure to APPRECIATE even if you don't ADMIRE a particular team, conference, or aspect is more a reflection on your knowledge as a fan than it is on the tradition, which has been part of college football since it's inception. Some people like the Jump Around, certain hayseeds like throwing TP in trees until an unrepresentative fan kills them. Colorado's "Ralphie" running onto the field is totally cool, too. The "i" in Ohio, the "T" in Knoxville and so on.
And who hasn't teared up a bit at the wave to the sick kids in Iowa City?
2) The Big 10 and SEC really have not played each other all that much outside of bowl games.
As of this current writing at the end of the 2022 season, the B1G and SEC have met on the gridiron a total of 176 times. Exactly 100 of those have been bowl games, and we'll remove the Kentucky-Indiana series, which hardly represents either conference in football (and it's easy since the all-time series is 18-17-1 in favor of Indiana, so it doesn't materially affect the overall view). The SEC is 65-35 in the bowl games and holds an edge in non-bowl games of 39-35-2. Overall, the SEC has won 59.7% of the meetings INCLUDING the bowls.
There is a rather obvious problem when it comes to evaluating REGULAR SEASON meetings between the two conferences: they don't play that often.
Of the 76 games between the conferences, 36 are between Indiana and Kentucky, who aren't exactly conference powerhouses in football. Indiana leads the b-ball school rivalry, 18-17-1, leaving only 40 meetings between the two conferences in the regular season. But that number goes lower still. Fourteen of those games involve Vanderbilt, whose history is worse than Kentucky. In fact, FOUR of the Vandy games are against "B1G Vandy" (Northwestern) and two more are against Chicago, who withdrew from the Big Ten while the smoke was still oozing from the bombs that ended WW2. And two more were games between NWern and TULANE, which means when you remove those eight games, the B1G and SEC "not totally riff-raff" have only met on the football field 32 times in the 90-year history of the SEC.
And even then, four more of those games are either Vandy or NWern, but we'll count those (Vandy played Ohio State and Michigan while NWern played Florida in an H/H) to make it even.
3) Months when non-bowl contests have been waged (excluding IU-UK):
August - 2
September - 24
October - 14
November - 0
4) Why are there so few games between these two big conferences?
The idiots that permeate the hanger-on fanbases (and some loud mouthed Michigan fans and the occasional outlier from Ohio) have a simple reason - "they're SKEERED to play us!!" People like this consume a steady diet of dryer lint washed down with diluted antifreeze. But let's go over the reasons quickly.
a) regional games only
This was college football prior to the days of jet travel. Remember the story about how Alabama spent two weeks taking a train to Pasadena in 1925? Notre Dame's final train ride to a game was the infamous tie with Sparty in 1966.
b) segregation
Northern teams weren't bringing black players into the South to play - and Georgia and Louisiana both had laws on their books forbidding mixed race sports. Kentucky began the football breakthrough in 1963, announcing they would play teams with black players. From 1957 to 1965, there was only ONE B1G vs SEC game, when Vandy traveled to Minneapolis to get thumped by then powerhouse Minnesota.
c) schedules were made years in advance...and the Big 10 played round robin with 2 OOC games.
In those days of printed tickets and limited TV appearances, schedules were made a good ten years in advance. This stuff you see now? It only happens because tickets come to your phone and communication is a million times easier. On top of that, while the SEC only played six conference games in the 1970s, the Big 10
d) the Big 10 did not participate in any non-Rose Bowl post-season games until 1974.
Another factor limiting ANY games between the two was the fact that prior to 1974, the Big Ten did not allow their schools to play in any bowls EXCEPT the Rose Bowl...and they had strict rules as to how often a team could go, too. The first meeting between conferences in a bowl was the 1978 Sugar Bowl between Alabama and Ohio State.
e) the TV war between the Rose Bowl conferences and the CFA schools prevented match-ups.
In 1976, the non-Rose Bowl conferences formed an association to be able to sell their games as a block unit to the networks. This was with the official position of the NCAA wound up in court after the NCAA threatened the CFA conferences with probation and sanctions and cost them a huge contract with NBC (who paid 1/2 the legal bills for the CFA). This made schools in each association afraid to schedule each other because if the game wound up on TV there was the potential of a lawsuit over "who gets to show the game?"
There are PLENTY OF REASONS that the conferences didn't meet on the field that have nothing to do with being afraid of playing each other.
f) Money
Tying it all together - prior to the proliferation of TV in 1984, there was far more money in Michigan playing Central Michigan or Alabama playing USM than Michigan playing Auburn and Alabama playing Purdue. And once SCOTUS cleared the path, you had the CFA-NZAA war ongoing, too.
Keep reading - it's about to get funny.
* - not to deny the obvious, but it's a little difficult to take seriously such examples as Alabama losing to Wisconsin in 1928 at a time when the pre-SEC was a loose association of many schools that included Texas. Starting with the founding of the actual modern conference is reasonable.
It's become cliche', so let's look at it.
"SEC teams are afraid to play Big Ten teams up north in December!"
(So are Big 10 teams; the only December games they play up north is the one played indoors, but I digress).
I'm gonna touch on where this nonsensical argument arose a few posts down, but first let's look at the data. Data challenges our assumptions and should inform our conclusions.
I don't do this with any agenda in hand, just an analysis of the actual record. But I also think it's pretty clear that anyone using the excuse, "Those teams won't play road games in December" is someone clearly on the short side of the ledger, too. But let's begin with the founding of the SEC in 1933, which correlates pretty decently with the overall picture given Michigan St didn't join the B1G until 1953.*
1) Both the Big Ten and the SEC have had good football teams through the years and fine traditions - even if you don't like them.
There have been many outstanding teams in both conferences from time to time. There have been great players. Yes, even Illinois had Dick Butkus and Red Grange. The failure to APPRECIATE even if you don't ADMIRE a particular team, conference, or aspect is more a reflection on your knowledge as a fan than it is on the tradition, which has been part of college football since it's inception. Some people like the Jump Around, certain hayseeds like throwing TP in trees until an unrepresentative fan kills them. Colorado's "Ralphie" running onto the field is totally cool, too. The "i" in Ohio, the "T" in Knoxville and so on.
And who hasn't teared up a bit at the wave to the sick kids in Iowa City?
2) The Big 10 and SEC really have not played each other all that much outside of bowl games.
As of this current writing at the end of the 2022 season, the B1G and SEC have met on the gridiron a total of 176 times. Exactly 100 of those have been bowl games, and we'll remove the Kentucky-Indiana series, which hardly represents either conference in football (and it's easy since the all-time series is 18-17-1 in favor of Indiana, so it doesn't materially affect the overall view). The SEC is 65-35 in the bowl games and holds an edge in non-bowl games of 39-35-2. Overall, the SEC has won 59.7% of the meetings INCLUDING the bowls.
There is a rather obvious problem when it comes to evaluating REGULAR SEASON meetings between the two conferences: they don't play that often.
Of the 76 games between the conferences, 36 are between Indiana and Kentucky, who aren't exactly conference powerhouses in football. Indiana leads the b-ball school rivalry, 18-17-1, leaving only 40 meetings between the two conferences in the regular season. But that number goes lower still. Fourteen of those games involve Vanderbilt, whose history is worse than Kentucky. In fact, FOUR of the Vandy games are against "B1G Vandy" (Northwestern) and two more are against Chicago, who withdrew from the Big Ten while the smoke was still oozing from the bombs that ended WW2. And two more were games between NWern and TULANE, which means when you remove those eight games, the B1G and SEC "not totally riff-raff" have only met on the football field 32 times in the 90-year history of the SEC.
And even then, four more of those games are either Vandy or NWern, but we'll count those (Vandy played Ohio State and Michigan while NWern played Florida in an H/H) to make it even.
3) Months when non-bowl contests have been waged (excluding IU-UK):
August - 2
September - 24
October - 14
November - 0
4) Why are there so few games between these two big conferences?
The idiots that permeate the hanger-on fanbases (and some loud mouthed Michigan fans and the occasional outlier from Ohio) have a simple reason - "they're SKEERED to play us!!" People like this consume a steady diet of dryer lint washed down with diluted antifreeze. But let's go over the reasons quickly.
a) regional games only
This was college football prior to the days of jet travel. Remember the story about how Alabama spent two weeks taking a train to Pasadena in 1925? Notre Dame's final train ride to a game was the infamous tie with Sparty in 1966.
b) segregation
Northern teams weren't bringing black players into the South to play - and Georgia and Louisiana both had laws on their books forbidding mixed race sports. Kentucky began the football breakthrough in 1963, announcing they would play teams with black players. From 1957 to 1965, there was only ONE B1G vs SEC game, when Vandy traveled to Minneapolis to get thumped by then powerhouse Minnesota.
c) schedules were made years in advance...and the Big 10 played round robin with 2 OOC games.
In those days of printed tickets and limited TV appearances, schedules were made a good ten years in advance. This stuff you see now? It only happens because tickets come to your phone and communication is a million times easier. On top of that, while the SEC only played six conference games in the 1970s, the Big 10
d) the Big 10 did not participate in any non-Rose Bowl post-season games until 1974.
Another factor limiting ANY games between the two was the fact that prior to 1974, the Big Ten did not allow their schools to play in any bowls EXCEPT the Rose Bowl...and they had strict rules as to how often a team could go, too. The first meeting between conferences in a bowl was the 1978 Sugar Bowl between Alabama and Ohio State.
e) the TV war between the Rose Bowl conferences and the CFA schools prevented match-ups.
In 1976, the non-Rose Bowl conferences formed an association to be able to sell their games as a block unit to the networks. This was with the official position of the NCAA wound up in court after the NCAA threatened the CFA conferences with probation and sanctions and cost them a huge contract with NBC (who paid 1/2 the legal bills for the CFA). This made schools in each association afraid to schedule each other because if the game wound up on TV there was the potential of a lawsuit over "who gets to show the game?"
There are PLENTY OF REASONS that the conferences didn't meet on the field that have nothing to do with being afraid of playing each other.
f) Money
Tying it all together - prior to the proliferation of TV in 1984, there was far more money in Michigan playing Central Michigan or Alabama playing USM than Michigan playing Auburn and Alabama playing Purdue. And once SCOTUS cleared the path, you had the CFA-NZAA war ongoing, too.
Keep reading - it's about to get funny.
* - not to deny the obvious, but it's a little difficult to take seriously such examples as Alabama losing to Wisconsin in 1928 at a time when the pre-SEC was a loose association of many schools that included Texas. Starting with the founding of the actual modern conference is reasonable.
