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‘It’s truly not that close’: Urban Meyer says the SEC, not the B1G, the best conference in football

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

Urban Meyer’s teams dominated the competition pretty much everywhere he went. Whether it was Bowling Green, Utah, Florida or Ohio State, Meyer’s squads were consistent winners.

Having spent time in multiple leagues — with his longest stints in the SEC and B1G — Meyer was asked on FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff which conference he thought was the best in college football. Though the coach-turned-analyst loves Ohio State, he says the SEC is by far the best conference in the sport.

Meyer pointed to attitude and recruiting as his reasons why.

“It’s truly not that close. The SEC is the best conference,” Meyer said on Big Noon Kickoff. “It’s their attitude. When I was in the SEC, the attitude was ‘how to dominate.’ I mean, it was about recruiting. Like I always told everyone, when you talk about college football — this isn’t the NFL — you talk about recruiting No. 1.

“That’s all they talked about in the SEC. It was all about players, it was all about championships. It was about getting to the [national championship]. …They didn’t care about anything other than themselves. And you kind of admire that.”

Meyer spent six seasons at Florida and won two national titles. After one year off from coaching, he then took the job at Ohio State, where he spent seven seasons and won four B1G titles and a national championship.

While he’s still beloved in Columbus, those comments about the SEC probably won’t sit too well among Buckeye fans. Or the rest of the B1G, for that matter.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB