For over 25 years now I have been attending a convention twice a year that has been held at major cities throughout the country. During these long hours in a booth I have the opportunity to make small talk with people from all across the country. Usually there are lots of shirts I see from major football schools and I have enjoyed asking this one simple question: “Which conference do you think has the best football?”

I used to get these responses:

In the west they would say, “The PAC 12.”

In Chicago they would say, “The Big 10.”

In Orlando they would say, “The SEC.”

In Washington D.C. they would say many different conferences (The Big 12, SEC, PAC 12) and sometimes they would say “The ACC or Big East,” but then they would usually laugh.

However, after Ohio State got beat twice in a row by SEC schools for the BCS championship, everyone has responded the same in the last 3 years!!!! They all say the SEC is the best!!! (Sometimes people will say their favorite conference but they will laugh and say it is really the SEC.)

None of the people I have visited have shown any hard feelings and resentment, but that is not true for the head man of the Big Ten Conference.

Big Ten’s Jim Delany needs to get over SEC obsession

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Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany recently referred to Alabama as “that team.” / Paul Beaty / AP

I guess Jim Delany just can’t help himself.

It’s not enough that Delany continues to blurt out ideas for a college football playoff, each one geared to benefit the Big Ten. Can’t blame the guy for that. He’s trying to protect and promote the conference of which he is commissioner.

In the process, though, Delany keeps taking swipes at a certain team from a certain conference that won a certain championship last season.

Delany recently referred to Alabama as “that team” in an interview with the Associated Press. And the reference was not in a favorable vein.

Attempting to fortify the case for his plan that would give conference champions the inside track to berths in a four-team playoff, Delany said:

“I don’t have a lot of regard for that team. I certainly wouldn’t have as much regard for that team as I would for someone who played nine conference games in a tough conference and played a couple out-of-conference games on the road against really good opponents. If a poll doesn’t honor those teams and they’re conference champions, I do.”

Never mind that Alabama played four SEC opponents that were ranked in the Top 25 at the time of the game. Or that the Crimson Tide played at Penn State — a Big Ten team — and won 27-11.

In Delany’s world, Alabama didn’t amount to much because the Tide did not even win its division. The part he left out is that half of the teams in the SEC West — Alabama, LSU and Arkansas — ranked in the top five in the final AP poll last season.

I suppose Delany doesn’t pay much attention to polls. Can’t say I blame him since Big Ten champ Wisconsin checked in no better than No. 10 — behind four SEC teams.

Delany is suffering from SEC fatigue. The conference he loves to hate has won the past six football national championships. The Big Ten has not scratched since Ohio State won it all in 2002.

He’s showed his bias before. In January 2007, after Florida blitzed favored Ohio State 41-14 in the championship game, Delany dashed off a dispatch on the Big Ten’s website that suggested his league was more ethical and had stronger academic standards in recruiting, focusing his attention on the defensive line.

“I love speed and the SEC has great speed, especially on the defensive line,” Delany wrote, “but there are appropriate balances when mixing academics and athletics.”

And I suppose there are balances when mixing a lying football coach at Ohio State and covering up for an alleged pedophile at Penn State. But I digress.

Delany wasn’t always so misguided and bitter. When he was commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference in 1979-89, he oversaw a period of impressive growth for both men’s and women’s sports. His move from the commissionership of the OVC to the Big Ten is one of the most extraordinary leaps in recent college sports history.

These days, though, Delany seems preoccupied with finding ways to undermine the SEC in order to elevate the Big Ten. In his world, Alabama (you know, that team) isn’t worthy.

The guy needs to get out more often.

David Climer’s columns appear on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Contact him at 615-259-8020 or dclimer@tennessean.com.