I recently read an article “SEC and College Football: Is it still the dominant conference?” on the Covering the Business Side of Sports website.

Here are my thoughts on the subject:

This becomes remarkable when you consider population and enrollment. Ohio, for example, has over 11 million people while Alabama has just under 5 million and Mississippi just under 3 million. The University of Alabama’s enrollment of 37,665–more than twice what it was when I was there 1997-2001–would make it the smallest school in the Big 10 East and larger than only Nebraska, Northwestern, and Iowa in the Big 10 West. Adding Texas A&M and Mizzou got the SEC into Texas markets, Kansas City, and St. Louis, but adding Rutgers and Maryland got the Big 10 into New York/New Jersey and DC/Baltimore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Conference