Amid Big Ten-SEC partnership rumors, Urban Meyer reveals how Tony Petitti's league gives tough competition to Greg Sankey & Co.

There is a rivalry between the SEC and the Big Ten for the claim of the "best" conference in college football. This rivalry has only intensified in recent years, as both conferences transform into "power conferences" where all the best teams in college football play.

Historically, the SEC has been seen as the stronger of the two, mostly due to the South's dominance in college football with the likes of Alabama and Georgia. However, as former Ohio State Buckeyes and Florida Gators coach Urban Meyer argues on Tuesday's edition of "The Third Option," the Big Ten is making a comeback.

"The Big Ten are on the same par," Meyer said. (Timestamp: 1:04) They are in the same conversation as the SEC. Anytime you want to talk about conference and the strongest conferences, I look at championships and NFL draft and stop there."

According to Meyer, we need to look at which schools the top players in the NFL draft played for to understand how strong the Big Ten has become.

In this year's NFL draft, 71 players from Big Ten schools were picked, while 79 SEC players were selected. If we focus only on the top 10 picks, this is shared three a piece, with numerous ACC and Big 12 schools involved in the top ten (including the top two picks).

While we could look further back to see if this trend remains, the recent mass expansion of the Big Ten, which involved the arrival of numerous top programs from the PAC-12, makes comparisons to previous years tricky. However, we can say that the addition of the likes of Oregon, USC and Washington to the Big Ten has seriously helped the conference compete with the SEC.

Additionally, the last two national championship games have been won convincingly by Big Ten programs. These were finals that no SEC team played in, which may signify waning dominance in college football in recent years.

Urban Meyer on the ACC

It is not only the Big Ten and SEC that have recently been a topic of conversation for Urban Meyer. On the June 25 edition of "Third Option," he discussed the ACC, a conference that appears to be moving in the opposite direction from the Big Ten.

"Here's the issue I have with the ACC," Meyer said. "There used to be arguments that it was one of the top conferences. They've been down. ... They're not right now, they're not, and so I just don't know enough about that conference."

The ACC contains many of the basketball powerhouses (Duke, UNC) and is led by Clemson in football. However, the Tigers have been repeatedly flirting with leaving the conference, which would significantly weaken the ACC.

Adding a broadcast deal doesn't provide enough revenue to help every program compete with their Big Ten and SEC rivals, and the ACC is looking like it will struggle in the coming years.

Edited by Alvin Amansec