Big 10 vs. SEC - A Different Perspective
We interrupt this coverage of the Win James Dolan's Money draft to bring you the SEC vs. Big 10 discussion I promised a few weeks back.
OK, here's the deal. We all know that the SEC is lauded year-in and year-out as the toughest college football conference in the nation. I don't have a particular reason to think that isn't true this year. But, I think there's more room for reasonable doubt than most are allowing.
How can I speak such blasphemy? It's surprisingly simple, really. How many marquee out-of-conference wins does the SEC have? I count only one, Tennessee's season-opening thrashing in Knoxville of Cal, who's looked pretty good since. By contrast, the Big 10 can boast of Ohio State's and Michigan's convincing road wins over Texas and Notre Dame respectively, both of whom are also otherwise undefeated. That same Wolverines squad also has the only win in this year's Big 10 vs. SEC series, a 27-7 victory over Vanderbilt, which in turn beat one of the SEC's big dogs (pun intended) in winning at Georgia.
But the SEC schools have ridiculously tough in-conference opponents, you say? Well, how do we really know? Before you call me crazy, just think about it for a moment. The polls tell us that the SEC has a lot of highly-ranked teams, but how did they get there? Save pleasant surprise Arkansas and not-so-pleasant surprise Georgia, their positions are largely based on preseason rankings. Only the aforementioned Volunteers have validated their rankings against superior outside competition. This may appear to boost Florida's case as well, but you can't play both the "on any given Saturday" and the "look at us, we beat a tough team" cards at the same time, which so many SEC partisans seem to do. And just for the record, the "on any given Saturday" phenomenon does not mean your conference has superior depth; it simply means that your conference is like any other one throughout the country. Every league has upsets; yours do not make your league special. Get over it.
What about the computers? Surely they know how to rate teams with imbalanced schedules, right? Well, any system that can rank a team that has struggled to get by most weeks (relying on gifts from opponents as often as not) ahead of a squad that hasn't won by less than 17 and with a win that dwarfs anything on the other teams' schedule doesn't earn my trust. As most of you know, I'm a numbers guy, but I can't put any faith in the BCS computers until USC drops behind OSU and Michigan, where it belongs.
Look, there's no doubt that some quality football is being played in the SEC. But until they do more to prove their worth on the field against meaningful outside competition, I won't acknowledge them as the undisputed best conference of 2006. Not that they care, of course, but I'm just saying.
OK, here's the deal. We all know that the SEC is lauded year-in and year-out as the toughest college football conference in the nation. I don't have a particular reason to think that isn't true this year. But, I think there's more room for reasonable doubt than most are allowing.
How can I speak such blasphemy? It's surprisingly simple, really. How many marquee out-of-conference wins does the SEC have? I count only one, Tennessee's season-opening thrashing in Knoxville of Cal, who's looked pretty good since. By contrast, the Big 10 can boast of Ohio State's and Michigan's convincing road wins over Texas and Notre Dame respectively, both of whom are also otherwise undefeated. That same Wolverines squad also has the only win in this year's Big 10 vs. SEC series, a 27-7 victory over Vanderbilt, which in turn beat one of the SEC's big dogs (pun intended) in winning at Georgia.
But the SEC schools have ridiculously tough in-conference opponents, you say? Well, how do we really know? Before you call me crazy, just think about it for a moment. The polls tell us that the SEC has a lot of highly-ranked teams, but how did they get there? Save pleasant surprise Arkansas and not-so-pleasant surprise Georgia, their positions are largely based on preseason rankings. Only the aforementioned Volunteers have validated their rankings against superior outside competition. This may appear to boost Florida's case as well, but you can't play both the "on any given Saturday" and the "look at us, we beat a tough team" cards at the same time, which so many SEC partisans seem to do. And just for the record, the "on any given Saturday" phenomenon does not mean your conference has superior depth; it simply means that your conference is like any other one throughout the country. Every league has upsets; yours do not make your league special. Get over it.
What about the computers? Surely they know how to rate teams with imbalanced schedules, right? Well, any system that can rank a team that has struggled to get by most weeks (relying on gifts from opponents as often as not) ahead of a squad that hasn't won by less than 17 and with a win that dwarfs anything on the other teams' schedule doesn't earn my trust. As most of you know, I'm a numbers guy, but I can't put any faith in the BCS computers until USC drops behind OSU and Michigan, where it belongs.
Look, there's no doubt that some quality football is being played in the SEC. But until they do more to prove their worth on the field against meaningful outside competition, I won't acknowledge them as the undisputed best conference of 2006. Not that they care, of course, but I'm just saying.
posted by Lock Ness Monster at 5:29 PM
2 Comments:
smarty pants
-gs
I should have known that was coming. My apologies for being late with the response; I'm not accustomed to getting comments on articles I wrote 4 months ago. Not that it isn't valid for you to do so, mind you, I'm just pointing out the reason for the delay.
Anyway, I have to be a man and admit that my team got beaten badly. I don't think they played their game, and there were some outside factors that I alluded to in "Let the Healing Begin", so as a fan I feel cheated because I don't think we saw the game we deserved to see. Nevertheless, a champion would have found a way to win that game, and my Buckeyes were not champions on that day. Hats off to Florida for doing what they were supposed to do in that setting: playing inspired, skillful and disciplined football from start to finish.
As to the pertinent question, now that we've seen how the bowl season played out, do I think the SEC proved the supremacy all of the analysts claimed it had throughout the season? I'll confine it even further to the specific question of was the SEC or Big 10 better this season. The SEC went 6-3 in bowls this season, while the Big 10 went 2-4, although those 2 wins came against the SEC on New Year's Day, making the Big 10 2-1 against the SEC head-to-head. Despite the head-to-head record, I still have to give the nod to the SEC on this direct comparison. The disparity in bowl records, which ends up being the crux of my argument in the original post because it's the only time these fraidy-cat ADs are forced to watch their teams play really good outside competition, is too great to ignore.
So what do I have to say for myself? I posed a question, and it was emphatically answered by something I didn't want to hear. And though that hurts me as a fan, I can live with it. I still say, however, that analysts should wait until a group of teams plays somebody before anointing them as the best thing since sliced bread. If the SEC is as consistently great as they would have us believe, they need to start proving it by scheduling about 4-6 more Tennessee-vs.-Cals and Arkansas-vs.-USCs a year. Unreasonable? Maybe, but the SEC Hype Machine is fired up to ridiculous levels, too. To bow down before the SEC in the absence of what I have demanded just now is like sending a $50,000 check to someone simply because they emailed you a picture of a Ferrari.
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