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The Big Ten May Be The Top-Heaviest Of All The Conferences

Though that doesn't make it nearly as good as others.

By Apollo Forza
USA TODAY Sports

Ever since Bob Stoops made some comments about the SEC and propaganda last week there's been quite a bit of discussion about how good the SEC is, particularly compared to the Big 12. These are the kinds of discussions that are had when it's the middle of May and football is still an entire summer away. I pretty much made my feelings on this subject known on Monday over at Eye On College Football.

But what I did see that piqued my interest on Twitter were a couple of tweets from Clay Travis and David Ubben. In an effort to prove that the SEC wasn't top heavy Travis tweeted this on Monday.

Now, it's a stat that doesn't really mean anything, but it's still interesting and pretty damn impressive. I mean, you forget it wasn't that long ago that Kentucky was actually not terrible at football.

Then there was this tweet from Ubben.

That's not bad either!

Well, this inspired me to do the same kind of research on the Big Ten, and what I found is that the Big Ten is very top-heavy. Which really isn't news to anybody that's followed the conference, but this is another strong indicator of reality.

What I did was I went through every single AP poll since the beginning of the 2007 season and kept track of how many weeks each school appeared in the top 15 of the poll. Unlike the SEC where every school has shown up in the top 15 at some point, only eight of the 12 Big Ten teams have done it.

Here are the results.

1. Ohio State 78 weeks

2. Wisconsin 41 weeks

3. Penn State 32 weeks

4. Michigan State 22 weeks

5. Iowa 20 weeks

6. Nebraska 11 weeks*

7. Michigan 9 weeks

8. Illinois 2 weeks

*From 2011 on when Nebraska joined the Big Ten

And that's it. Making the conference even more top-heavy is the fact that of the 215 combined weeks in the top 15 between the eight school, Ohio State claims 78 of them, or 36%. Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State account for 70% of the 215 weeks proving that, since 2007 at least, the Big Ten has been a three-team league.

Also, I'm sure it makes Michigan fans feel good to see they've spent a grand total of nine weeks ranked in the top 15 since 2007 while Nebraska racked up 11 weeks in only two seasons.

But, hey, at least you have more than Illinois does, Michigan. Hang your hat on that.

Follow The Champaign Room on Twitter at @Champaign_Room and Like us on Facebook. You can follow Tom Fornelli on Twitter at @TomFornelli.