gee is a smart man who occasionally says dumb things.
He's right that big 12 schools are, for the most part, superior academic institutions than sec schools. Vanderbilt is the lone highly reputable research school school in the sec, while in the big 12 you have a number of strong research schools, such as michigan, wisconsin, ohio state, northwestern and maybe some others. That said, tennessee knoxville isn't a bad research school and neither is georgia. Alabama has a surprisingly high rated law school.
Evidently, keen self awareness isn't necessarily a requirement to be president at the ohio state.