Agree wholeheartedly. As a Big Ten alum, it truly does seem that your players down there just move faster, especially on defense. But you’re not the be-all and end-all of college football (especially with your often anemic offenses this year), and conference superiority is fleeting. Big 12 is up this year – above the SEC, I’d argue – and in three years maybe the ACC will amaze us with its awesomeness.
Also, saying, “We’ve had the reigning BCS champion for TWO years in a row,” is really underwhelming.
Your complaint is that people always say the SEC sucks? Really? My complaint is that people never, ever shut the fuck up about how the sun rises and sets on the SEC and that they’re the most wonderfulest conference in the history of conferences. Ugh.
How about 4 separate national champions winning 6 national titles over the last 15 year period, not counting the 2 undefeated seasons Auburn got hosed out of. That would have made 5 separate teams and a possible 8 titles in the same period. If you go back a little more, then there is even one more team and numerous more titles.
There are very few conferences who can claim they have had 6 legitimate title contenders over a 25 year period, all of whom continue to be.
First of all, choosing a “15 year” period is completely arbitrary. If you go back to the start of the BCS Championship game (far less arbitrary), it seems like you have a case that the SEC has been pretty good: Four SEC champs, two for the Big 12, and then one each for the other BCS conferences.
Second of all, I can’t believe you’re claiming that six teams “continue to be” title contenders when that group includes Tennessee and Auburn, who are having terrible years (and, in the case of Tennessee, have been subpar for a long while).
Third, you might be interested in this, which will show you that (a) the Big 12, the Big Ten, and the Pac-10 have all had SEVEN BCS bowl teams, compared to six for the SEC, and (b) the Big Ten has had more BCS bowl berths, although the SEC has a greater winning percentage.
I guess the long and the short of it is that the SEC has been the dominant conference of late, but (a) they’re not as solid from top to bottom as some seem to claim – at best, they seem to be roughly equivalent to other BCS conferences in that regard, and (b) it’s not a given that they will be the dominant conference next year, or even THIS year.
The problem is that they, more than any other conference, refuses to play a worthwhile nonconference schedule. The logic being that “the SEC is so tough we don’t need to”. When every citation of the SEC dominance is their wins over other SEC teams you’ll understand people’s dubious expressions. Also, it’s not much of a credit to the SEC when their one undefeated team beats another teams undefeated team in the BCS championship game. It proves that that one team is good, but when the 4 SEC teams in non-BCS Bowls go .500 versus other conferences it gets ignored because those teams “weren’t very good”.
The SEC has a nice little self-propagating scam going. I’m not going to say that they suck, they have some very good programs, but they aren’t any more talented top to bottom than every other conference.
Yes it is. Which is why I suggested you go back farther if you’d like. Perhaps you missed that part.
Give me a break. I didn’t say they were all up there every year, but those 6 teams are up there a bunch lately. My point being that none of them are one-hit wonders. Of course some are down some years, but they always snap back. You can’t say that about any other conference.
Tennessee has not been subpar for very long. They went to the SECCG last year. They’ve had 2 bad seasons, but they’ve also had their up years.
If USC hadn’t been hosed on maybe **3 plays ***over the course of 3 seasons, we might have **5 successive Nat’l Championships! ** (The record is two baby! And we already got that! )
*Young’s TD run in the Rose Bowl, or Trojans not making the catch to go ahead,
Missed Extra point against whoever that was the next year,
Fluke catch by Stanford for TD
Well, actually you can. Perhaps you missed my link that pointed out that, while the SEC has put six (out of 12) different teams into BCS bowl games, the Big Ten has put seven (out of 11) different teams into BCS bowl games, the Big 12 has put seven (out of 12) different teams in, and the Pac-10 has put seven (out of 10) different teams in.
Your conference isn’t the only good one. SI.com has the SEC as the best (by a wide margin) from 2003-2008, but they were second to the Big Ten between 1998-2003.
All a BCS game shows is your worth relative to the rest of your conference. Also, a whole bunch of those teams that made it to BCS games from other conferences are currently down, and have been so for quite some time. Many don’t have any light at the end of the tunnel. Not so for any of the 6 SEC teams I mentioned.
Also, your link does a wonderful job showing the consistency of the SEC over that time period. On top of that, look at the difference b/t one and two for the past few years, vs. the difference when the SEC was listed at #2.
Which ones? I don’t doubt that some are, but then again, you’re the guy who says that Tennessee is still competitive.
I’d love to take a peek at this “Almanac of Sports, 2025” that you seem to be referencing here, if only to place a choice wager or two.
I’m not really seeing the “consistency.” I see improvement, but not consistency. Whatever, a minor point.
Rather than continue to engage in this ticky-tacky back and forth, why don’t you give me your thesis statement with respect to the SEC? Mine, which I underlined before, is that the SEC is a really good conference, but they’re not the only really good conference. Sub-theses would be that the SEC has almost inarguably been the best conference for a large part of the 21st century, but they’re second best this year, and there’s absolutely zero guarantee that they’ll be the best in years to come. Oh, one more point: the SEC isn’t noticeably stronger from top to bottom than, say, the Big 12 or Big Ten – nor have they been in the BCS era.
Because all you have to do to get there is win your conference. How in the world is that difficult to understand?
They are, year in and year out. They may have down years, but they don’t suck at the level of a Northwestern, Stanford, Oregon State, Washington, Washington St. -teams that all have good years, but aren’t on the level of any of the SEC’s Big 6 over any length of time you want to name.
Then you have eyesight issues. If you don’t think the 2 positions (and point totals) of the SEC on that chart are closer together than the Big 10, Pac-10, ACC, and Big-12, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Wonderful… I never argued that point. If you’ll bother to pay attention to the lifespan of this thread, you’ll notice that my initial response was to the assertion that the SEC’s 2 MNC wins weren’t particularly impressive. I listed other accomplishments that might be more impressive. I never said it was always the bestest conference in the whole wide world. Go argue that point with someone who has more time on their hands. I suggest a Bama fan.
As a 'Bama (it still needs to be capitalized) fan, I’m hoping that 'Bama - Florida is equally boring.
ETA: Is it odd that I don’t give a flying F about the Auburn game? Maybe it’s because the other half of my family went there, so I can’t work up as much animosity as my dad, who went to 'Bama.
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