Is the SEC really the country’s greatest conference?
I saw this article by Saturday Down South about the SEC Championship Game and how the gap between the SEC and rest of college football was widening.
I’d like to point out – even as a SEC homer – that there are some corrections to be made:
1) If you watched the ACC game, you saw tarps covering large sections of the upper deck coupled with plenty of Carolina Panther-blue empty seats throughout the stands. Most estimates put the crowd size in the 30,000-40,000 range. The Big Ten Championship attendance was reported to be around the 41,000 mark. The Pac-12 Championship Game was hosted on-campus at Stanford on a Friday night and pulled around 31,000 fans. At least the Pac-12 recognizes it can’t support a neutral site venue at this point and maintains an on-campus venue each year. – If you’d seen the weather at Stanford, you would have respected Stanford fans – not the best at going to games – for at least coming out. It was horrific. UCLA fans aren’t great travellers anyway, especially with Friday night California traffic. Why did they have the game on a Friday, anyway. Charlotte for a ACC game is a great spot – although it’s a long way to go for FSU and GT fans – especially when GT is at best weak this year and FSU’s interest in a National Title’s gone. The SEC Championship Game is in Atlanta, which is 3 hours for Bama fans and is a local game for the UGA faithful – and students. Plus, it’s in a Dome so the weather’s perfect! And the fact that it was a big-time game helped matters, too! The point about the Pac-12 and the fact that it ‘can’t support a neutral site at the moment’ is true…. Apart from USC, Pac-12 fans aren’t great travellers – although the distances are far bigger than our beloved SEC!
2) A successful conference championship game requires teams worthy of winning a championship. This is true – but 6-6 Georgia Tech and 7-5 Wisconsin WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN IN THE GAME if Miami and Ohio State hadn’t had ‘issues’ with the NCAA. And note that SDS doesn’t mention Florida State or Nebraska, who were worthy winners of their respective divisions. What does SDS expect? Not having the conference championship??
3) My buddy, a die-hard UGA and SEC fan, says this: ‘At the top, the SEC is the best conference in college football, but at the bottom, we’re Sun Belt’. Having seen Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Auburn and Tennessee prodigiously this seen, it’s hard not to agree. All four are awful. Mississippi State proved to be hugely overrated. Ole Miss might be competitive, but they might have also benefitted from a poor conference. Vanderbilt lost to Northwestern (Heeeeeey! They’re a bowl team!!). And Missouri’s so bad, it just beat Tennessee in overtime.
4) But there are parts of the article we agree on: The SEC simply has more of these elite programs than any other conference. And that’s why the SEC is the best. The SEC isn’t the best because the best team in the SEC can beat any other team in the country by 40. The SEC is the best because they have 5 or 6 teams that can handily beat or compete against every team in the country. South Carolina vs Notre Dame? Yeah, it’d probably be a good game. Florida vs Oregon? I’d love to see it. Alabama vs Kansas State? Done. You me both, SDS!!
5) And as for the bowl match-ups, I’m sorry bowl people, but we agree with ‘Saturday Down South’ – I’m not going to be watching Florida/Louisville unless I’m dating Ms Kentucky and she’s a Louisville fan… Why are fans upset about the bowl matchups? Because instead of seeing Florida take on a team like Oregon, we have to watch them take on Louisville. Instead of seeing Florida State take on a team like LSU, we have to watch them play Northern Illinois. We want powerhouse vs powerhouse. Having said that, we’re pretty happy about Alabama/Notre Dame, South Carolina/Michigan and Nebraska/Georgia. These are all going to be a lot of fun.