SEC & Big XII Dominating Bowl Season

MIAMI (CBSMiami.com) – As the 2012 Bowl season heads down the final stretch, it's safe to say that the best football in the country is played in the SEC and the Big XII.

Using the conference lineups for next season, the SEC would have a 6-2 record with wins by Missouri, Texas A&M, Auburn, Florida, Mississippi State, and South Carolina.

The SEC also has two more games left with Arkansas playing in the Cotton Bowl, and Alabama and Auburn in the BCS title game.

The Big XII would be right behind the SEC with victories by Baylor, TCU, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas. The Big XII also has one game left in the aforementioned Cotton Bowl against the SEC.

But while the SEC and Big XII will be sitting pretty to start next year, the same can't be said for the two power conferences of the Big Ten(+2) and the Pac-12.

Heading into the final few games of the bowl season, the Pac-12 has finished off its bowl season and compiled a 2-5 record with the headlining win being Oregon knocking off the Big Ten champion Wisconsin Badgers in the Rose Bowl.

The Big Ten, which had the most bids by conference in the 2011 bowl season, certainly didn't do anything to justify those bids. The Big Ten is just 3-6 in bowl play with just the Michigan Wolverines game in the Sugar Bowl left on the schedule.

The conference would have been 2-7 if Georgia's kicker could have made a field goal in the first overtime of the Outback Bowl on Monday.

Further, the SEC holds a 15-6 record in the Bowl Championship Series, compared to the Big Ten's 11-13 record in BCS play.

For years, the Big Ten and the Pac-12 have both thrown up road blocks to a playoff system. For a second straight year, the Big Ten has been awful in bowl play and this year the Pac-12 isn't doing much better.

Both call themselves power conferences in the scheme of college football, but that may only apply to television deals and not to the play on the field.

At least until Urban Meyer and Brady Hoke firmly establish Michigan and Ohio State as teams that can compete with teams from the South and Midwest.