Bill Connelly's Week 2 preview: Big Ten-SEC challenge, early conference tests - ESPN

Which conference is better, the Big Ten or SEC? I got asked that question more than ever this offseason, and I patented a pretty consistent response: For nearly 20 years, the SEC demanded that you judge it by its titles, and by that standard the Big Ten is clearly superior — it has won the past three, after all, and with three different teams. If that's all that matters, crown the Big Ten.

Of course, in the current AP top 25, the SEC also has seven of the top-12 teams and 11 of the top 22. Last year, three Big Ten teams were better than the best SEC team per SP+, but seven Big Ten teams were also worse than the worst SEC team. The Big Ten is a top-heavy league with quite a bit of dead weight, though the SEC is a parity-heavy league that produces endless close games, loads of CFP contenders and, for the past couple of years, no genuinely elite teams.

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This can be a pretty fun debate because you see whatever answer you want, but we'll all have the same temporary answer Saturday night because Week 2 is basically giving us a three-game Big Ten-SEC Challenge: No. 11 Oklahoma at Michigan to start the day, followed by a Mississippi State-Minnesota interlude and the Saturday evening headliner, No. 1 Ohio State at No. 4 Texas.

It's a best-of-three for bragging rights! And it's not all that Week 2 has to offer. We also get old-school rivalry games (Missouri at Kansas, Iowa State at Iowa), a high-stakes Group of 6 matchup (Memphis at Boise State), huge early-season conference tests for two top-15 teams (Alabama and BYU) and several other Big 12 prove-it