This past weekend the myth of SEC football received it’s final nail in the coffin. You know the one – Just about all the best college football players, best coaches, and best college football teams reside in the SEC. Your non-SEC football team? It can’t compete, because it doesn’t have a SEC defense or SEC speed.
It’s been coming for awhile. I’m not referring to just this weekend’s results either. The SEC is just another conference when it comes to football. A pretty good one still, but one that can’t point to recent years as proof that S-E-C is heads and shoulders above the rest of country.
During the SEC’s run of 7 straight national titles, 4 different teams won national titles Florida (2006), LSU (2007), Florida (2008), Alabama (2009), Auburn (2010), Alabama (2011), Alabama (2012) and only once was the scoring margin less than 10 points. The ACC (Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Florida State) were outmanned during rivalry week going 4-11 from 2008 – 2012 with the SEC. The Big 10 became a national laughingstock with their annual New Year’s Bowl beatdowns at the hands of the SEC. The highwater mark of 2011 featured two SEC teams, LSU and this year’s National Championship favorites Alabama in the title game, but as all things do, it comes to an end.
Beginning in 2012, the SEC’s best began showing cracks. Florida ranked #3 in the nation was beat 33-22 by the #21 Louisville in a largely un-competitive game. #14 Clemson beat #8 LSU in the Chick-Fil-A bowl 25-24. That LSU team was considered a national title contender late into the season.
The legendary 2013 Florida State team broke the SEC’s stranglehold on the national championship beating Auburn 34-31. This was proof that in a given year even the best team the SEC had to offer was not the nation’s best team. Also in that same year Oklahoma man-handled Alabama in the Sugar Bowl 45-31.
From 2012-2014 the SEC went 1-6 in Big 6 bowl games. There was the 2014 bowl debacle, where each ranked SEC West team was beaten in their bowl game. Remember the 42-3 TCU win over Ole Miss? The 49-34 Georgia Tech win over Mississippi State, and the 42-35 Ohio State win against Alabama. If this sounds familiar, it should I pointed some of this out last year as SEC Football had come to remind me of ACC basketball in the early 2010s.
What’s different now is the faceplant the SEC did this during opening weekend with a whopping 6 OOC losses which included a Mississippi State loss to South Alabama and Kentucky going down to Southern Miss. There were other losses too. Ole Miss getting outscored 39-6 after FSU spotted the Rebels a 22 point lead. Auburn lost at home Clemson. Missouri lost to West Virginia, and LSU lost to unranked Wisconsin.
In the SEC’s defense Alabama looked like well Alabama against USC, and Georgia and Texas A&M beat ranked UNC and UCLA teams. As recently as last year the SEC went 9-2 during bowl season and Alabama did win the national title. The Tide are immune to the discussion of the demise of the SEC, as Nick Saban has a monster rolling in Tuscaloosa.
That said overall the SEC will remain a good football league. They recruit too well, and they are still putting the most players into the NFL.
SEC football isn’t dead, just the myth of it.
That’s a good thing too as now as individual teams can shine no matter what conference they play in.
