Two things can be true (and I believe both are true):
- The ACC has consistently been underrated as a conference by the national media (noticeably ESPN) and has tremendous depth even when they lack championship teams at the top;
- The SEC has been a better football conference but only marginally so if you wish to measure entire conference strength
Much of the SEC’s glamour comes from the sheer size of their stadiums, fan bases and programs….which makes it look like they are simply overwhelming. It is further true they have had more than their share of national champions. BUT they have always made a habit of playing weaker teams in other conferences (e.g.,, Alabama would schedule Duke, Auburn would schedule Wake Forest, etc) which inflates their overall records head-to-head. But in
some seasons they have also won the top teams matchups as well.
Seems like a way to rationalize a view that one wants to have.
I recall when Bryan Harsin was first hired at Auburn. When he was asked what his first impressions were, he remarked on the size and physicality of the SEC teams. "We don't face players like this" out west he said (or something like that). He proceeded to put an emphasis on strength and conditioning. (He was fired before it made a difference. Freeze has made it a priority even if he is struggling.) The size and athleticism of the lines is a trademark of SEC play and it's one reason why Sarkasian (coming from Bama) did better in the transition to Texas than Venable did at Oklahoma. Sark had a pretty good idea of what he was going to be facing every week, Venable did not (or didn't care).
Bill Belichick was asked why he selected players from the SEC who didn't see much playing time during their college years. He said something to the effect that they are practicing against the best talent in the country every week. That alone is a reason to give them a look. And he did. (Say what you want about Belichick but the guy grew up evaluating talent.) I know a few and they have said the SEC uses more NFL style evaluation to justify playing time than most any other conference. You can claim otherwise, but just an NFL coach who says the same about the ACC. I can't think of even one.
Brian Daboll, an NFL coordinator who became Bama's OC, was asked how Alabama specifically, but the SEC in general, compared to the NFL. "No difference", he said. "It's the same everything."
I could pull up the data but the SEC has for sometime, dominated the number of players who go on to play in the NFL. Because they do it consistently (year in and year out), it is a simple matter of reloading. And that's what you often heard (past tense) from analysts ... it's either returning production or reps/experience. And SEC teams have had that at least since 2007 when Saban made it a priority. (If you look at the Dodd years, he often went 3-7, 5-5, 7-3, 10-0 because he spent a lot of time on development, so results were on average good, but not as consistent.)
So I think there is a strong case to be made that the SEC is a very talented conference, perhaps the most talented (or not), but there's no debating the statistics. When I look at the SEC, I see a conference with the best facilities, the best (or among the best) talent, great coaches and a product that fans (and viewers) want to watch. And you can see that in viewership, money, swag, and almost everything else.
The ACC is historically a basketball conference (and it clearly was when Tech paid to join it) that is trying to catch up to that. The horse has left the barn folks. That's a LARGE reason why the former guys (TStan and He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named) focused on "path to the league" as their strategy.
I typically refrain from responding to the "who has a better conference" posts (and I probably won't respond to a reply to this one), because people's minds are made up and there is no way to change them.
Note: All of this changing. No more is talent allocated ONLY to the SEC because it is mobile now. I expect you will see the SEC drop in talent to the league as talent moves around and teams become more evenly matched. Over time, you will probably even see conferences go away (there's already talk of that), so it will be moot.
