When it comes to football season, as a Big Ten fan I am forced to come up with increasingly preposterous reasons why midwestern teams seem to be running with lead shoes hanging their heads low every January. Whether its "our opponents are playing home games!" or "its the long lay off!" or "lets see these warm weather schools come play up here when its snowing."

I have used every one of these excuses in my fandome in recent years, and I frankly don't really believe in any of them.

In addition to being an Illini fan, I am a Chicago Bears fan, and a lot of the most important play makers the Bears come from southern warm weather schools. Lance Briggs (Arizona) Devon Hester (Miami) Brian Urlacher (New Mexico) and Alex Brown (Florida) all seem to play very well on the famously cold turf of Soldier Field.

As far as college football is concerned, in recruiting, in coaching, in local prospects, the southern schools all seem to have an upper hand on my beloved Big Ten. That is of course not to say that there is no talent to be had in the Midwest. Ohio and western Pennsylvania remain to be very fertile recruiting grounds. The problem is that  there is not enough talent to support an entire conference, ie: there is a reason Zook  continues to recruit Florida so heavily.

What is striking to me however, is this year especially, the basketball universe seems to be the polar opposite of football. Take a look at your weekly top 25 for basketball. You will see exactly one, one SEC basketball team in the top 25. One team when just a couple years ago Florida had back to back NCAA titles. Much like football, basketball's elite schools are centered around the recruiting nexuses (nexi?) where most of the talent can be found. The New York area, Illinois and Indiana and North Carolina among others are recruiting hot beds that  right now are favoring the northern schools and the carolina schools.

A state like Illinois, that only rarely creates an impact player in football routinely is the source for all sorts of NBA star power. (Derrick Rose, Kevin Garnett, Dwayne Wade) While many others can be attributed to other Midwestern states like Lebron James (Ohio) and Kobe Bryant (Pennsylvania)

It seems to me, in my very unscientific analysis, that the conference or region that grows its own talent will have the upper hand in that sport. In the north and Midwest more athletic young men, for what ever reason, opt for basketball over football. How else could you explain the unbalance towards basketball in states like Illinois?

None of what I am saying is new or a revelation, everyone knows Illinois and Indiana are "basketball states" and Florida and Texas are "football states" but I do hope that it points out how unnecessary the pissing contest of conference strength rankings are to some extent. In basketball of course perception and RPI can mean whether your bubble team gets in or left out, or in football, whether your conference gets a second BCS spot. But the extent to which the fans take the my conference is better that your conference argument gets absurd.

In the end, playing in the best conference is no guarantee for a championship, and unless you are the best team in that conference, your conference's strength doesn't really help you all that much. Playing in the SEC hasn't netted  many BCS championships for Arkansas or South Carolina, and if you will forgive me Cincinnati, simply playing in the Big East should not be a argument enough to make the big dance.

Besides for as often as Florida's have won in football, in their self proclaimed best conference in the world, hasn't USC won multiple championships this decade also, and in the frequently weak Pac 10? In basketball the odds tell us that the Final Four will be made up of the strong ACC and Big East, but  I guarantee there will be at least 3 conferences represented in the Final Four.

When you get right down to it, unless I am on the bubble, I could care less about my conference's relative strength, because the strength of my team is the only one that really matters.