Clay Travis reaction gives far too much credit to desperate SEC conference

Some people find it difficult to look beyond the final score line and raw stats. Being able to actually make use of numbers to reach an informed opinion can be a bridge too far oftentimes. Forget about actually attempting to watch and evaluate the games without a spreadsheet dictating what the opinion on any given aspect should be.

Following the Week 2 action, OutKick's Clay Travis made a silly claim that attempts to cling to the widely held belief that is universally beginning to lose credibility among all college football fans.

Old opinions often have a slow, lengthy death, though, and Travis is attempting to give a certain narrative as much life support as possible. According to him, two weeks through the season, the SEC is unquestionably the clear-cut best conference in the nation. His sole stated reason to back up this belief is the record of all teams across the conference. He used the non-conference matchups against other Power 4 schools. In theory, this makes sense. What this fails to take into consideration, however, is that even within the 'mighty and all-powerful' SEC there is an enormous difference between teams.

When comparing like-for-like, however, it is clear that the Big Ten has caught up to the SEC, if not surpassed the conference that truly did once run the sport.

Travis' biggest feather in his cap is the latest loss to Michigan. It should be fairly clear, though, two weeks into the season that he is allegedly evaluating that young, inexperienced quarterbacks are not going to be a long-term solution in 2025.

Everyone witnessed how well Arch Manning fared against a good roster at Ohio State. To now use the Longhorns' San José State win as some sort of indication that the Texas situation is in a good place is foolish.

By the same token and to be fair, Ohio State and Michigan are going to equally struggle unless Julian Sayin and Bryce Underwood are able to make a quick and rather unprecedented mid-season leap as underclassmen who are starting for their respective teams for the first time.

To look at a Florida team that finished the year strong and then lost to USF at The Swamp is something that cannot be simply brushed under the rug.

What this means for USC

For USC, the challenges of playing in the Big Ten should be more apparent than ever. Take Iowa and Michigan, for instance. Both programs lost this weekend but still managed to stay in the game with a chance to win despite fairly limited offensive production. When taking the latest Georgia Southern performance into account, Trojan fans will hope not to see a repeat of last season come conference play.