How a Big Ten/SEC challenge could settle the football powerhouse debate

Want an easy, simple way to determine if the SEC or Big Ten is the better football conference each season that doesn’t involve complex mathematics?

Start a Big Ten/SEC Challenge series similar to the ACC/SEC Challenge in men’s basketball.

This is the idea I had while writing about Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti’s comments to start Big Ten Media Days on Tuesday. The genesis of this idea (that is totally originally and definitely hasn’t been suggested on any message boards or social media platforms) is from the debate about the SEC having an eight-game conference schedule and the Big Ten has a nine-game schedule.

To some, that puts SEC and Big Ten teams on different levels when it comes to strength of schedule and how the College Football Playoff selection committee views different resumes.

But SEC teams already have some of the nation’s hardest schedules and adding another conference game would only make them harder. The Big Ten feels like, after its teams have won the last two national titles, it’s conference schedule is just as hard…and they play one more game than SEC teams do.

To be blunt, the SEC adding another conference game wouldn’t do anything to change anything. Arguments will still be made that the SEC is better than the Big Ten and vice versa. But those arguments wouldn’t be as strong if the college football’s two powerhouse conferences started a challenge series.

Imagine one weekend during the season where all of the SEC teams play Big Ten teams (we’ll address the obvious issue shortly). Teams that finished with similar records the prior season would one another the following season. The teams at the bottom of the standings play one another and the teams at the top play one another.

That’s pretty close to what’ll happen in a season-opening game between Texas and Ohio State in 38 days. And Mississippi State would end up playing someone like Purdue (1-11, 0-9) instead of Arizona State, the reigning Big 12 Champion.

Also, imagine the frenzy leading up to that weekend. Fans would be going crazy on message boards and social media. Us in the media would have predictions and all kinds of stories. The weekend would draw huge television numbers.

And the fans of whichever conference wins more games would have the right be annoyingly braggadocios for the rest of the season.

Now, the obvious issue (schedules can be re-arranged so let’s not get into those logistics) is the Big Ten has 18 teams and the SEC has 16.

One solution could be to exclude the two teams that finish at the bottom of the Big Ten standings from the challenge series. That’d would see Mississippi State face Northwestern (4-8, 2-7) and put Purdue and Maryland out of the series.

Or the SEC could expand to 18 teams.

Expansion isn’t that crazy. Florida State’s fee to leave the ACC will be lower and lower each year and SMU is great geographical fit that might actually be returning to its former Pony Express glory days.

Or maybe Memphis who somehow has $200 million to join the Big 12 is an option?

But if we want to decide things on the field, this is something that should be done.