NCAA Football NEWS
Do You Hate The SEC? Get Over It!
Published by MoonDog on August 12, 2008
For all of those college football fans that have become annoyed with the endless chatter of how great the Southeastern Conference is, you might want to visit another link now. Actually, I’d appreciate it if you continued reading.
Still with me?
Look, the SEC is a great football conference and the proof is in the pudding. Four BCS championships, two of which have been consecutive victories over Ohio State. The four BCS titles are double the number of championships won by the other power conferences.
As we count down the days towards another college football season, it’s a very real possibility the SEC will have another team representing the conference come January 2009 at the BCS title game in Miami.
Many among my fellow SEC brethren would consider this blasphemy, but I’m of the opinion the Big 12 may actually be the best conference this season. Oklahoma and Missouri are loaded, Kansas returns the majority of their starters, Texas and Texas Tech have plenty of talent to make a lot of noise and Colorado, Kansas State and Texas A&M aren’t going to be slouches.
But at the end of the day, the SEC will always be thought of as the best conference, perhaps this season more so because of its reputation instead of truly having more quality teams.
When you look at what I believe are the nine legitimate contenders for the BCS championship, the SEC and Big 12 contain five of them. Georgia and Florida have immense talent and you can never count out a Tommy Tuberville coached Auburn team. We’ve already established Oklahoma and Missouri are primed to make a run.
On paper, USC is the most talented team in the nation and Ohio State may be the second most talented. You can’t dismiss West Virginia or Clemson, simply because the Big East and ACC aren’t going to be particularly strong this season.
The SEC will have a few dark horse teams, like Auburn, who no one is talking about much but is more than capable of winning the SEC championship and Tennessee, a team that has a lot of talent and could also win the SEC title.
Mix in a resurgent Alabama team, South Carolina and a Mississippi State squad that will continue to surprise and you have yet another year in which the SEC is going to be brutal.
USC in the weak Pac 10 should waltz to the title game, unless of course they lose their starting QB for any length of time. Oh wait, they just did when Mark Sanchez decided to show off his dancing skills, or lack thereof, and dislocated his knee cap.
But fear not Trojan fans, your talent is so overwhelming that the only thing standing between you and a spot in the title game will be Ohio State, or possibly Stanford – ZING! Seriously, USC is clearly head and shoulders above every other team in the Pac 10 and even a loss to the Buckeyes on September 13 more than likely wouldn’t keep them out of Miami if they run the table, as they should do.
Wisconsin, Penn State and Illinois might make some noise in the Big 10, but the conference championship is the Buckeyes to lose. The Buckeyes biggest bugaboo is the SEC, losing every game they’ve played against an SEC opponent, the most notable of which are the consecutive losses to Florida and LSU in the past two BCS title games.
Ohio State, like USC, could withstand a loss to the Trojans and still earn a spot in the title game. Unless there is a major slip up along the way, it wouldn’t come as a shock to see the Buckeyes make their third straight appearance in the BCS championship game.
The Big East is all about the Mountaineers. Beyond the team from Morgantown 
the only real threat to possibly earn the Big East championship is South Florida. The Bulls are solid but they aren’t BCS championship material. Unless West Virginia loses unexpectedly as they did last season against Pittsburgh, they should end up in a BCS bowl without too many problems.
Clemson has talent and plenty of it. That’s been the case the past few seasons but the Tigers have shown a propensity to lose late season games that keep them out of the ACC championship.
Florida State and Miami should be better this season and Virginia Tech has proven to be consistently good, but Clemson should win the ACC.
Whether the Tigers are good enough to earn a spot in the title game is another question. Until they prove capable of getting into the ACC championship game – and winning it – there’s always going to be some reservations.
As mentioned above, the Big 12 is going to be a blood bath this season. While I believe the Sooners and Missouri are more than good enough to win the BCS championship, I don’t know if a team from that conference is going to have fewer than two losses, and with the exception of last season, two losses generally will keep you out of the title game.
The Sooners lost several key players to the NFL and still have the most talented team in the conference. If it weren’t for the fact they played in the Big 12, I could see them in Miami.
Missouri has one of the better teams in the land and they too could represent the Big 12 in Miami, but the schedule is so demanding I can’t see them with anything less than two losses by the time we end the season.
In the SEC, the Bulldogs have a team more than capable of reaching Miami and they’ll have to earn it. Their schedule is the toughest in the nation and the game against Florida should decide which of those two will represent the Eastern division in the SEC championship.
The Gators will be better defensively and they have the reigning Heisman Trophy winner at QB, but as we saw last season, if you stop Tebow you can beat Florida. The Gators have a pretty tough road to hoe as well but it isn’t as tough as Georgia’s path.
As I mentioned, Auburn is a team that can win the SEC championship. The Tigers always seem to do more with less than any other team in the SEC. Auburn doesn’t always have the most talented team on paper, but they’ll always be knocking on the door for an SEC title.
So which two teams survive the gauntlet and make their way to Miami? I’m going with USC and Auburn. Why? Because I’m not unlike anyone else that doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about. USC is so much more talented than every team they’ll face, with the exception of Ohio State, I just don’t see them stumbling.
And I’m going with Auburn because I’ve been talking about how they aren’t getting much attention and no one does a better job of coaching a dark horse team than Tuberville.
In the end, we might get to see a team from outside the SEC win the whole enchilada, but don’t count on it. It wouldn’t be a surprise to hear chants of SEC, SEC in January.
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Jim on Tue, 12th Aug 2008 02:53
This article was a real eye opener–I didn’t know they played football north of Kentucky and/or west of Arkansas…
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GoPurple on Tue, 12th Aug 2008 11:44
Yup, this season in the Big 12 should be a real doozy. The big unknown right now is how good Nebraska will be THIS year; they may surprise some people. OU plays them in Norman this year in what I’m sure will be a mega-hyped game if NU has done well up to that point, with the Youngstown connections between the coaches and all that…
tophatal on Tue, 12th Aug 2008 12:42
Moon Dog
They say there’s strength in numbers and that’s most certainly what the SEC has at present. That’s not to say that those other conferences aren’t as eqaully adept. But in sheer terms of quality teams and the quality of the football that’s played within the conference. To my mind the SEC has its compatriots beat hands down !
And in making comparisons with some of these other conferences to my mind at times means nothing. Especially when one considers that some of those coferences don’t even have a conference championship.
Many of those teams garner much of their braggin’ rights by beating up on the like of The Little Sisters of the Poor And Merciless </em in order to gain further national attention. And then we’re made to believe that the rankings count for something. That’s about as meaningful as taking a shit in the crapper just to see what color it is ! And then to smell to find out if the odor’ll be to your liking.
tophatal ………….
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