How good is the SEC?

[Wickchad]

I'm getting a little sick of hearing about how it is a foregone conclusion that the SEC champ will play for the national championship each year. It would be likely that had Florida lost today, but beat Alabama in the SEC championship game that they would jump back into the title game with one loss and three undefeated teams not in the title game (TCU, Cincinnati, and Boise State). So my question is how good is the SEC really, and how do we know?

SEC teams non-conference games against BCS conferences:
Florida only plays Florida State. So if Florida wins this game we will know that they are at least as good as a 6-6 ACC team.

Alabama beat Virginia Tech who will probably finish in the top 3-4 of the ACC.

LSU beat Washington so we know that they are better than the 2-3rd to last team in the Pac 10.

Georgia lost to Oklahoma State and beat Arizona State. So we know that they are not better than the 2-3rd place team in the Big XII, but they are better than the 6-7th place team in the Pac 10. If Georgia beats Georgia Tech we would know that they are better than the 1-2nd team in the ACC.

Mississippi does not play any one outside of conference.

Auburn beat West Virginia so we know they are better than the 3-4th place team in the Big East.

South Carolina beat NC State so we know they are better than the 10-12th place ACC team.

So what do we know? How good are any of these teams?

If Alabama wins the conference then we least know that they would compete well in the ACC. If Florida wins then we know nothing. How can you gauge how good a team is when you can't compare what they have done to anyone else because they only play teams from their conference, and team in their conference also only play the same teams. You can't even say that Florida is the best because they beat ..... who beat ..... out of conference so you know they are very good.

Maybe the whole conference sucks. How can you argue that it is so great? If their only quality wins are against each other how do we know that they are quality wins?

The one problem with this line of thinking is that they keep winning the national championship game...

I just hope that TCU gets to play Alabama and repeats what Utah did last year. I think Texas will beat Florida.

[wazzucoug97]

Excellent points and I will add something that has bugged me about BCS schools for years is the number of home vs away games. Florida & Alabama each play 4 away and 8 home games!

[KYCoug]

Without a playoff no one can really say how good the SEC is. I would guess you have to give them some historical credit when you consider 4 out the last 6 BCS champions are SEC teams. I haven't looked at overall bowl wins but that's probably a similar stistic in some of the best non-bcs bowls out there. No team and no conference plays the top teams from the other conferences so you can't really argue anyone else is better.

I know the Big 10 used to be looked at in that catagory and it's great they've been exposed in the last few years.
Boy we really need a playoff!

Go Cougs!
L Hatton
Louisville KY

[mizzoucoug]

The SEC is genius though really if you think about it. Once they started getting teams into the NC game, they began to, embarrassingly, water down their non-conf games. That way every team in the conference starts out 4 or 5-0. Well crap, once you have that then of naturally you'll have 3 top 10 teams and 2 more in the 25. From there on out, you can always say that SEC teams "beat up on each other" and that they defeat "ranked" teams every week. It's circular logic but it's almost gospel at this point since the country has bought into it. I mean LSU a top 10 team? Seriously?

It's a very clever ploy and only those who don't drink their kool-aid are capable of seeing it.

[Schmoe]

The other thing with the SEC is that their officials understand who they work for. The higher ranked teams get all the calls and, therefore, stay ranked and move up, so they're pretty much guaranteed to have a team in the NC every year...

[KYCoug]

Growing up in SEC country I can tell you they buy into this SEC superiority crap 100%. If you talk to a SEC fan they will say a team like the Y is only ranked because they pile up a lot of cheap wins against some of the weakest teams in football. I loved it last year when Wy beat Tenn and of course the puks beat Alabama. It was like hay!!! the King has no clothes! Our worst beat your worst and our best blew out your #2 who had just lost to your number 1 by just a couple of points.

Go Cougs!

L Hatton
Louisville KY

[GolfDiveNCougs]

I would guess you have to give them some historical credit when you consider 4 out the last 6 BCS champions are SEC teams.

You have all made very valid and interesting points regarding the "rise" of the SEC, but KY, your comment made me think about how the Title Game appearances have helped shape the current mindset.

I've mentioned many times before how College Football is and always has been about the Royalty Schools, and their entitlement to all that is biggest, brightest and best (recruits, tv contracts, you name it). BYU fans assume that it's about BCS vs. Non-BCS, and it's really not. It's about the Chosen Few. The College Landscape has just developed to a point where each one or two Royal teams requires an entourage to make them look pretty. That's all the BCS conferences are. Yes, this has a lot to do with TV revenue, but for example, TV is buying Oklahoma, not Baylor. The conference also-rans have just become part of the package deal to protect the investment. Think I'm crazy? (Well, you're probably right, but my point here is still valid...) Do a little research on how many Indepentents there WERE. A LOT of royals were independent, and National Titles were being doled out to them before the entourage rush. Notre Dame SWAM in 'em (they're the only hold-out from that era, and look what's happened to them), and you had Penn State, Miami, Pitt to name a few. The last three examples serve to show exactly what the entourage rush did to some programs. Penn State and Miami are still Royalty (my definition: single loss season will still garner them serious National Title consideration), but much less respected than they were, and Pitt is sub-nobility at best. Interestingly, there is a definite caste system to the Royalty, a pecking order if you will. Some royals are just more royal than others when all else is equal. A few examples:
-Last year OU over Texas. Both are royal (anyone actually think TTech is going to the Big12 Championship? Riiiiight), OU is MORE royal.
- Why do you think that USC was kept out of the title game in multipe seasons in which their record matched contenders'? All else equal, East Coast bias sez, USC is less royal.

But I digress.

Point is, the Old-Royalty hero worship is basically what got the SEC it's Title Game Clout in the last 6 years. And NO, I'm NOT referring to the worship of Florida and LSU. Truth be told, the ascension of Florida and LSU into the ranks of royalty is relatively recent. Hard to think back this far, but before this decade, believe it or not, the SEC royalty were Alabama and Tennessee. I know. Mindblowing. But think about it. Florida had the more recent title of the two schools, their only one, in 1996. LSU? Only title... 1958. Before '03, the only SEC team to play in the BCS Title Game? Tennessee. I know. Mindblowing.
The hero worship to which I'm referring is who they PLAYED. Four wins, against two teams. Those two teams? Big time old-Royalty. Now, I won't take anything away from the wins themselves, afterall:

-'03 OU was ranked #1 and the only undefeated for a reason. On that night, LSU played better than they were, and OU did what they always do in BCS games. Oops.

-'06 was a slaughterfest waiting to happen. Anybody with half a brain knew Ohio State wasn't worth NEAR what their undefeated record said it was. If there were no such thing as royalty, it would've been Boise State that did it to Ohio State, as they were the only two undefeateds. (Not saying Boise was better than Florida, I'm saying we'd never have found out).

-'07 set a bad precedent on multiple levels. Ohio State proved they didn't deserve the shot, but got it anyway because they were the only team who was the royalty with one loss or fewer. It got worse that the BCS "annointed" a 2-loss team (don't say that wasn't what it was, because you can't call a jump from #7 to #2 anything else!) to be the other contender. Problem was, Ohio State was a big enough poser that year, it was a foregone conclusion a 2-loss team would win their Title. Again, if royalty didn't exist, well, 2 things: Hawaii is the biggest statistical abberation in the history of College Football. No WAY they should have rattled off 12 wins as poorly as they played, even against TEAMS as poorly as they played. Multiple overtime games against 3-4 game winners? Gaah! With that in mind, for my sanity, I'll simply ignore that aspect of my non-royalty argument. So before I so rudely interrupted myself, if royalty didn't exist, Kansas beats Ohio State for the Title.

-'08 was a ferris-wheel of one- and zero-loss teams that in all actuality should have gotten an equal shot. Think about it... 8 teams with one loss, 2 teams with zero losses. Remind me why that wouldn't have been the most AMAZING tournament in the history of sport??? Oh yeah, IT WOULD HAVE. Please, remind me why we don't have a playoff system again??? But under the system we have, the SEC machine had by this time been erected and fired up, so everyone annointed the SEC champ placement in the title game from week 1. After that, it was a Royalty Contest between the other 9. Oklahoma wins that contest, despite being a worse team than, oh, at least 4 of those schools, maybe 5. If royalty didn't exist, well, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe Utah beats Boise for it all. Who knows.

Wow, this has turned into a novel. Point is, Ohio State and Oklahoma didn't do the rest of NCAA Football any favors by cashing in their Royalty status only to get WIPED TWICE by two of MANY better teams than them, it just so happened that the teams that did the wiping ended up with a bigger reputation for their deeds than they deserved. Don't get me wrong. The SEC is good. They AIN'T THAT GOOD!!!

[Metal Bubba]

This same question gets asked every year. And then the bowl games get played and the SEC proves to be either the best conference OR the second best conference. I stopped asking this question a couple years ago. They prove it almost every year.

End of thread.

[1967cougar]

Growing up in SEC country I can tell you they buy into this SEC superiority crap 100%. If you talk to a SEC fan they will say a team like the Y is only ranked because they pile up a lot of cheap wins against some of the weakest teams in football. I loved it last year when Wy beat Tenn and of course the puks beat Alabama. It was like hay!!! the King has no clothes! Our worst beat your worst and our best blew out your #2 who had just lost to your number 1 by just a couple of points.

Go Cougs!

L Hatton
Louisville KY

I'm sorry, but the Pukes will never be referred to in my vocabulary as "our" best. I pulled for Bama the entire game and am still upset that they played way below their potential and allowed the Pukes to win. Remember, Utah was only there because TCU's field goal kicker choked twice. Please don't try to make me understand your point of view. I'd prefer to carry my strong dislike of the Pukes to may grave with me - along with all my other many faults.

[CAFB_04-12]

GolfDive, that was an AWESOME post.