Gamecock fans, and maybe its because I was surrounded by them for four years, seem the most prone to this SEC bravado. With each passing 6-6 or 7-5 campaign they continually fall back on bragging about how superior their conference is to the rest of the nations. How their shortcomings in the win column are because the SEC is so danged tough and how that if they were in any other conference they'd be competing for championships. USC fans are not alone in this line of thinking though. From Athens to Oxford and Knoxville and all over the Southeast its a common rallying cry that the SEC is second to none.
With two mediocre SEC teams beating the two teams that will meet for the ACC Championship next weekend, fans of the conference are puffing out their chests. Well, time to peg them back down to size. At the expense of getting barred from ever returning to Dixie, here are X reasons why the SEC circle jerks have got to stop.
First and foremost, in sports, you should be cheering on your team, not your conference. This phenomena only seemed to begin within the past decade as the BCS started to weigh in strength of schedule.Who cares what the other teams are doing, they are supposed to be your rivals, your enemies. Worry about your own teams record.
MLC: This is a terrible point to make. The entire college football concept is predicated on matching equally-finishing teams from different conferences in nationally televised bowl games. We have to include conference comparisons in order to decide who the best teams are to put into these bowl games and eventually decide who the best team in the country is. The system is flawed, but conference comparisons are as intrinsic to modern day football as shoulder pads and helmets. If there were no conference comparisons, you and I would not even have this fake second job that we enjoy so much...at least not as it relates to college football.
Yes, conference comparisons serve a purpose, but my point was more such that SEC fans, more than any other fan base in the country, really get off to touting their own conference. Maybe this has something to do with demographics and the fact that in reality, college football is more important in the Southeast than it is anywhere else. Professional sports just aren't as prevalent and have never big as big a deal in the South and thus college football fills that void. The Pac 10 and Big XII and other conferences love their teams just as much and are just as passionate, but its not the only show in town. It isn't as "do or die" as it is in Dixie. When I watch post-game reactions after non-conference games outside the SEC I see fans more excited for their teams victory, not hollering about their conference. Earlier in the season I suffered a real conundrum when Va. Tech played Alabama to start the season. It was a tale of two evils: on one hand do I root for the team I have hated my life, whose fans I despise, or do I root for a team who plays in the SEC. I actually rooted for VT solely because I knew that if Bama won I would be constantly reminded via all forms of social media at just how dominant the SEC is. If Va. Tech had won I would have gotten annoyed by a bunch of Tech fans thinking they were destined to win every game, but never would they have start taking about the ACC this and the ACC that. Strength of schedule and thus conference comparison is important, just shouldn't be a bragging point and a fallback point for mediocre teams that litter the SEC landscape this year.
The best team in the country doesn't come from the best conference. Quite simply this isn't the case in any sport and I don't understand why people think this is the case in college football. Last year in college basketball everyone raved about the Big East and how incredible the conference was. Not one of their teams made it to the finals.
MLC: That's not always the case. Sometimes it is. Sometimes is isn't. Also, comparing a 16-team basketball conference to a 12-team football conference when the college basketball postseason is composed of a playoff (basically) and the college football postseason is composed of one out of conference neutral site game is not a good argument. Besides, despite LSU's obvious downfalls as a two-loss team, it's tough to argue that the SEC was not the best conference in college football in 2007. And I honestly can't say for sure whether the Big XII was the best when Oklahoma won the title in 2000 or when Nebraska won it in 1997. I will agree that the best team doesn't always come from the best conference, but not that it never comes from the best conference nor that it cannot come from the best conference.
Here is why people think the SEC is the best and here is why they are wrong. On paper, the conference has 4 of the last 6 National Champions. This is all well and good until you actually, you know, remember those seasons and that the BCS sucks instead of just spewing out facts. LSU won the Crystal Trophy in 2003 despite Southern California being #1 in both the Coaches and AP polls. The Trojans were somehow left out of the game but were still awarded the AP National Championship, thus split champions. When Florida beat Ohio State in 2006 who knows who the best team in the country really was as the season long assumption of the dominance of the Big Ten was laid to rest with a thud. Another example in the danger of conference hyping. LSU won the next year despite having 2 losses and literally backing into the title game. And last year a one loss Florida beat Oklahoma by the same margin a one loss Texas did. Am I really supposed to believe that any of these 4 teams was definitively the best in college football? Of course not.
MLC: No arguments here, just an addition: the SEC has really spotty quarterback play all over the place. LSU's quarterback Jordan Jefferson sucks and spikes the ball with one second remaining. Jevan Snead at Ole Miss was a total disappointment this year. Ryan Mallett was surprisingly good, but then again he had to transfer to Arkansas to get into the SEC. The guy that Arkansas actually recruited is now a third stringer at USC (and I mean Soutrhern Cal for all of you stupid 'Cocks...notice the apostrophe). South Carolina's Garcia is weak. Does anybody know who plays QB for Kentucky? Mississippi State? Vanderbilt? Joe Cox at Georgia has proven to be poor man's Joe Tarashinski (and that's really embarrassing). Alabama wins despite Greg McElroy. No thank you to Tennessee's Jonathan Crompton. Auburn's Chris Todd is actually pretty good, turning in 21 TDs to only 6 INTs. Well done Chris Todd! And that leaves us with only Rev. Tim Tebow, who is not so much a quarterback as fullback who can throw wobbly passes to really fast receivers. I give you the quarterbacks of the SEC. We can build on this.
In any sport if a team with a mediocre record beats a better team in the regular season does it really ever matter? Only reason it matters in college football is that there isn't a playoff and for the most part, teams don't play twice. Doesn't change the fact that Clemson and Georgia Tech are better football teams and having better seasons than USC and Georgia despite this weekends losses. I understand USC and UGA fans should be proud that they upset their in-state rivals, but I am sure their fans would much rather have a conference championship and BCS bid than a 7-5 season.
MLC: I can't really agree with this one either. Shitty Georgia, who was blown out by your whipping boys Tennessee, dominated one-loss Georgia Tech, the head and shoulders best team in the ACC (despite getting worked by my Canes) from start to finish in Atlanta. Now that's just as much a home game for Georgia as Georgia Tech, but you get my point. Mediocre South Carolina was clearly the superior team against Clemson. These beatings underscore what many already knew: the ACC is not a good football conference this year and has not been for quite some time. Two mediocre SEC teams beat the two best teams that the ACC has to offer (theoretically). Whether or not the fans of South Carolina and Georgia would rather play in a BCS game or have a 7-5 record is irrelevant. They'll have a 7-5 record and still be better than the eventual ACC champion, which doesn't say as much about the SEC as it does the SEC.
I'll stick with my guns here. Georgia Tech and Clemson had both already wrapped up their spot in the conference championship game. They both knew that the course of their season would be decided in that game. Now, did they want to lose their rivalry games? Of course not. But they weren't playing with the same degree of intensity that their opponents UGA and USC. That game was the end of their mediocre seasons and held the ONLY redeeming aspect of lost expectations. It was a much, much bigger game for the Dawgs and Cocks and not surprisingly they won. Big whoop. After next weekend either Clemson or Ga. Tech and their fans will be conference champs, be playing in a BCS bowl, and most certainly will have forgotten the results of their game against their rival.
Don't give me that SEC defense crap. Just because the Tide and Gators have great defenses, doesn't mean the rest of the conference should infer they do.
MLC: I've already touched on this, but I'll repeat it: the SEC's quarterbacks are terrible from top to bottom. It's embarrassing that we'll be watching either Tebow or McElroy play a really good quarterback (Colt McCoy) in the national title game. I predict that the gap in ability and talent at the qurterback position will be one of the most glaring discrepancies in the 2010 BCS National Championship Game. Keep in mind that this does not necessarily mean that Texas will beat Florida or Alabama. Remember: that throwing full back (Tebow is not so much a running quarterback as a throwing full back) for Florida is still pretty good at scoring touchdowns whichever way he can.
People seem to fail to realize that conference supremacy ebbs and flows like the tide. From 1999-2003 the conference didn't have a team even make the BCS title game. In 2004, an undefeated Auburn team didn't even receive a vote for a share of the national championship because the conference was nationally perceived as being weak. I'll concede that the conference has been deeper the past couple of years than most anyone else, but that doesn't change that the conference still loses its fair share of big games. Florida and Tebow lost to a Michigan team which had lost to Appalachian State earlier in the season 2 years ago in the Outback Bowl. Last year, Ole Miss, the team that gave Florida its only loss, had just lost to a mediocre ACC team in Wake Forest (but that Ole Miss team did also take advantage of the Cotton Bowl dominate a Texas Tech team that beat Texas and was ranked number two at one point in the season. Texas Tech had bigger aspirations all season than winning the Cotton Bowl. I don't blame them for having a lackluster game against a streaking team). Speaking of the ACC, South Carolina lost to Clemson and preseason #1 Georgia lost at home to Georgia Tech last year as well. In the Sugar Bowl, one loss and mighty Alabama lost to the mid-major Utah Utes (Insert TCU in the 2010 Sugar Bowl, same result). So, yeah, the SEC was deep last year, but your not as good advertised.
MLC: How can you argue that Clemson beating South Carolina and Georgia Tech beating Georgia is anywhere close to relevant when you just made the opposite point in a previous paragraph? You literally just wrote that those wins were more or less aberrations this year, so why did they matter last year?
MLC: How can you argue that Clemson beating South Carolina and Georgia Tech beating Georgia is anywhere close to relevant when you just made the opposite point in a previous paragraph? You literally just wrote that those wins were more or less aberrations this year, so why did they matter last year?
Ah, because football is situational my friend. As I stated earlier, Clemson and Ga. Tech had bigger things in the back of their mind while their opponents had only to concentrate on their rivals. Last year, with no team destined for a huge bowl, the game was equally important for both teams. It was all 4 teams seasons. Just not the case this year.
That brings us to this year.
MLC: I disagree that 7-5 records make these teams mediocre. This means that there is parody in the SEC. Each team is just as good as the other, except for Alabama and Florida, who are better than the rest. The truly glaring falsehood and a major chink in the armor of these SEC teams is the weak out of conference schedules they ALL play. Of the 12 SEC teams, four (4) of them played ranked nonconference teams from power conferences. Mississippi State and Georgia both played Georgia Tech. Georgia also played Oklahoma State. Alabama played Virginia Tech. South Carolina played Clemson. That's it. Mississippi State also played Houston, but whatever. The rest of their schedules are filled with always tough powerhouses like Louisiana-Monroe, Lousiana Tech, Western Kentucky, Miami (OH), and Florida International. Oh, and don't forget Western Carolina. Watch out for those fesity Catamounts.
So the SEC...they're all as good as each other and better than the worst 25 teams in the country. Other than that we have no proof of anything else, really.
And unlike previous seasons there is a conference out there that, despite not having a national title contender, that is drastically deeper and better than this years SEC.
The Pac-10. And its not even close. (On this, we agree)
The SEC East's second best team, Tennessee, lost at home to a UCLA team that is currently EIGHTH in the conference. The same Tennessee that played Florida close in Gainesville and came within a Cody blocked FG away from beating the Tide in Tuscaloosa. Bowl eligible Georgia barely won at home against an Arizona State team that is second to last in the conference. LSU, second in the SEC West, struggled mightily to beat a 4-7 Washington team. Unlike fans down South, I've watched both conferences play. (It should be noted here that Newman has hated Tennessee all year long, including one memorable tweet that read something like "I don't want to live in a world where Jonathan Crompton is good.")
The Pac 10 is just better. It has 5 teams that are 8-3 or better. Two weeks ago Arizona came within an OT of all but clinching the Rose Bowl berth. However, with that loss the Wildcatss, despite winning this weekend, are now the conference's sixth place team.
Before SEC fans gag on their grits, allow me to clarify again. Best doesn't mean the Pac-10 has the most outstanding teams. It has the most outstanding competition, which is even better.
Out West, you never know what's going to happen. Down South, you know what to expect.
Florida will win. Alabama will win.
All meaningful drama has been on hold until the SEC Championship Game Dec. 5. Otherwise, the season's been a sideshow where fans just wait on Lane Kiffin's mouth to rev up or Les Miles' brain to freeze.
Face it, boys. It's a down year for almost every team outside of Gainesville and Tuscaloosa. The Pac-10 doesn't have a super team, but it has a half-dozen good ones. And if you want to get technical, as I said, UCLA thumped Tennessee and Arizona State almost beat Georgia in Athens. And lest we forget, Pac-10 also-ran USC (how funny is that?) beat Big Ten champ Ohio State on the road. Let's see the fifth-place SEC team do that.
The SEC is like an auto company that has two great cars and a bunch of clunkers. The Pac-10 can roll out a line of impressive models. Oregon is the flashiest, but it still must beat Oregon State this weekend to win the league crown.
MLC: The SEC has ten used Nissan Altimas and two Aston Martins. The Pac-10 has 8 Lexuses, a used Geo, and a Yugo (Washington State is the Yugo). What I mean by Lexuses is that these cars look nice and everybody recognizes them as impressive, but once you get inside it's just a gussied up Nissan (Fact: Lexus is the luxury version of a Nissan). The Pac-10 teams are not vastly better than the SEC teams, they're just slightly better, but they're all slightly better.
So SEC fans a little advice. Stop using selective memory, actually watch games outside your conference, and start taking more pride in your own teams instead of wasting your breathe ballyhooing your rivals. And don't forget that no matter how you spin it, this year your conference is, quite simply, second best.
That brings us to this year.
MLC: I disagree that 7-5 records make these teams mediocre. This means that there is parody in the SEC. Each team is just as good as the other, except for Alabama and Florida, who are better than the rest. The truly glaring falsehood and a major chink in the armor of these SEC teams is the weak out of conference schedules they ALL play. Of the 12 SEC teams, four (4) of them played ranked nonconference teams from power conferences. Mississippi State and Georgia both played Georgia Tech. Georgia also played Oklahoma State. Alabama played Virginia Tech. South Carolina played Clemson. That's it. Mississippi State also played Houston, but whatever. The rest of their schedules are filled with always tough powerhouses like Louisiana-Monroe, Lousiana Tech, Western Kentucky, Miami (OH), and Florida International. Oh, and don't forget Western Carolina. Watch out for those fesity Catamounts.
So the SEC...they're all as good as each other and better than the worst 25 teams in the country. Other than that we have no proof of anything else, really.
And unlike previous seasons there is a conference out there that, despite not having a national title contender, that is drastically deeper and better than this years SEC.
The Pac-10. And its not even close. (On this, we agree)
The SEC East's second best team, Tennessee, lost at home to a UCLA team that is currently EIGHTH in the conference. The same Tennessee that played Florida close in Gainesville and came within a Cody blocked FG away from beating the Tide in Tuscaloosa. Bowl eligible Georgia barely won at home against an Arizona State team that is second to last in the conference. LSU, second in the SEC West, struggled mightily to beat a 4-7 Washington team. Unlike fans down South, I've watched both conferences play. (It should be noted here that Newman has hated Tennessee all year long, including one memorable tweet that read something like "I don't want to live in a world where Jonathan Crompton is good.")
The Pac 10 is just better. It has 5 teams that are 8-3 or better. Two weeks ago Arizona came within an OT of all but clinching the Rose Bowl berth. However, with that loss the Wildcatss, despite winning this weekend, are now the conference's sixth place team.
Before SEC fans gag on their grits, allow me to clarify again. Best doesn't mean the Pac-10 has the most outstanding teams. It has the most outstanding competition, which is even better.
Out West, you never know what's going to happen. Down South, you know what to expect.
Florida will win. Alabama will win.
All meaningful drama has been on hold until the SEC Championship Game Dec. 5. Otherwise, the season's been a sideshow where fans just wait on Lane Kiffin's mouth to rev up or Les Miles' brain to freeze.
Face it, boys. It's a down year for almost every team outside of Gainesville and Tuscaloosa. The Pac-10 doesn't have a super team, but it has a half-dozen good ones. And if you want to get technical, as I said, UCLA thumped Tennessee and Arizona State almost beat Georgia in Athens. And lest we forget, Pac-10 also-ran USC (how funny is that?) beat Big Ten champ Ohio State on the road. Let's see the fifth-place SEC team do that.
The SEC is like an auto company that has two great cars and a bunch of clunkers. The Pac-10 can roll out a line of impressive models. Oregon is the flashiest, but it still must beat Oregon State this weekend to win the league crown.
MLC: The SEC has ten used Nissan Altimas and two Aston Martins. The Pac-10 has 8 Lexuses, a used Geo, and a Yugo (Washington State is the Yugo). What I mean by Lexuses is that these cars look nice and everybody recognizes them as impressive, but once you get inside it's just a gussied up Nissan (Fact: Lexus is the luxury version of a Nissan). The Pac-10 teams are not vastly better than the SEC teams, they're just slightly better, but they're all slightly better.
So SEC fans a little advice. Stop using selective memory, actually watch games outside your conference, and start taking more pride in your own teams instead of wasting your breathe ballyhooing your rivals. And don't forget that no matter how you spin it, this year your conference is, quite simply, second best.
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