Which conference truly is the best in college sports – with a narrowed focus on football?

It’d be easy to say the SEC, based on the success of Alabama and Georgia alone, but an SEC school hasn’t won the CFP National Championship in two seasons.

Is it the Big 10, with Michigan beating Washington in the National Championship on New Year’s Day? How about the ACC, with Clemson winning the 2016 and 2018 titles?

I wish the North Carolina Tar Heels could add to the ACC’s football argument, but late-season collapses don’t help their cause.

According to Big 12 commissioner Brett Yorkmark, none of the above conferences I mentioned are the best in college sports.

Despite the Big 12 not winning a National Championship in college football since 2006, when a Mack Brown-led Texas Longhorns squad beat USC, Yorkmark says the Big 12 is college football’s deepest conference.

Please, make it make sense. The success doesn’t add up.

“We solidified ourselves as one of the top three conferences in America,” Yormark said during Big 12 Media Day. “There has never been a better time than right now to be part of the Big 12. We are truly a national conference in 10 states, four time zones and all eyes are now on the Big 12 for all the right reasons. I think it’s safe to say we are more relevant now than ever before.”

In a recent story published on ESPN, which contains the above quote, Yormark points to the SEC and Big 10 being second and third interchangeably. He said nothing about the ACC.

In Yormark’s defense, the Big 12 did grow in the offseason with additions of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and Arizona State. Utah and Arizona enjoyed solid years in 2023 and the Buffaloes improved, but them and Arizona State finished in the Pac-12’s cellar.

Can another conference step up and be college football’s “best?”

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Story originally appeared on Tarheels Wire