Sporting News article re: Urban Meyer/SEC/Florida/UM-ohio
Short, but interesting view discussing Urban Meyer "politicking" for SEC teams (read: Florida) deserve to play in the BCS Championship.
Link: Here
All because voters didn’t want a rematch of Ohio State vs. Michigan—an uber-classic of a game won by the Buckeyes—in the BCS title game. Meyer publicly complained about the potential rematch and politicked for his team, then led the Gators to a resounding win the SEC Championship Game—and watched the narrative turn toward Florida while Michigan had completed its season a week earlier.
The writer contends of ohio didn't get blown out by Florida that year, things may be different today.
Edit: The references to Meyer are during his tenure as head coach for Florida, not ohio.
It's hard to argue against the dominance felt in the college football world by the SEC. They've clearly been on another level the past 5 years or so.
And a rematch between UM and Ohio would have been great for us... only because we lost in Columbus. Had Michigan won the "Game of the Century," we would have talked about how dumb a rematch would be.
The SEC hasn't been on another level. Alabama and to a lesser extent LSU, Florida have been.
I guess that's what's impressive . . . as soon as one falls off a little bit, there's another to take its place every year. Florida, then LSU, then back to Florida, then Alabama, then Auburn, then back to Alabama, then . . .
Every other conference has been one-hit wonders - Texas, USC, Ohio State.
I'm no fan of the shady SEC, but you have to give credit where it's due. They do get what they pay for.
They sure do. Their top 4 teams are good to great. The next 2 or 3 are decent and then the other half of the conference is down right garbage.
“Shoot, we had a few (teams) that could have had some fun in that (BCS Championship) game last year,” said South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier.
I acknowledge that the SEC is the toughest conference, but the gap is not as big as the SEC teams think it is. Michigan lost on a last-minute TD to SC. Louisville embarrassed Florida. LSU couldn't handle Tajh Boyd. Meanwhile, Alabama destroyed an overrated and lucky ND, A&M destroyed overrated Oklahoma, and the Georgia win over Nebraska was pretty close until the fourth.
SEC fans only have to say one thing: scoreboard.
As much as I hate their attitudes, the fact remains they've gotten the job done when it counts (e.g. bowl season) and our faithful leaders in Indy continue to set up games where we are at a disadvantage in both strength (SEC #3 vs B1G #4) and location (warm weather cities that are 1000's of miles away and located in SEC country).
Yes, I am still bitter that the CFP will not be played on campus, as it should, for the semi final rounds.
Yeah, the location thing has been a issue with me for a little bit. The SEC teams don't have to go anywhere. Even in their regular season, I'm not sure if any of them go west of Louisiana. (*Probably one or two teams actually do, but I'm just trying to make a generalized point)
You say "they've gotten the job done when it counts," but you're really talking about an extremely small sample size. Most of the SEC's perceived dominance comes from their string of NCs, which is impressive, but we're still really only talking about seven games. And that's besides the fact that SEC teams usually get favorable positions in the polls, which means that they've had more chances to win NCs than teams from other conferences. Again, it's impressive that the conference has won 7 titles in a row, but it doesn't imply that they're on a completely different level than other conferences.
As you point out, the SEC has also done well in other bowl games, although they don't really have a dominant record. But keep in mind, home teams in college football win about 2/3 of the time, and every bowl game the SEC plays in is a de facto home game. It's not surprising that they win more than their fair share.
do you remeber what happened to michgan in there bowl game that year? both M and Ohio got blown out so id say they got it right
Edit: Double post somehow
Yes I REMEMBER what happened to MICHIGAN in THEIR bowl game that year. Obviously you're the OSU fan speaking with your grammar skills. By the way, yes, grammar does end in -ar
The more you know...
well im a michigan fan and i was speaking in terms of both teams.. michigan got killed so did osu. but ohio beat us and its clear we were not the 2nd best team in the country that year after the osu game.. sorry for the grammer bud good to know we have fine people like you to point that out
You're totally right. That UM-OSU match-up was awesome (ending notwithstanding), but there is no claim that they were the two best teams in the country after those bowl games.
It does highlight part of the problem with the current system. OSU and UM definitely looked like the two best teams (or close to) through the regular season, but they clearly weren't once they faced off against their bowl opponents.
Why do those two games wipe away the rest of the entire season for both teams? This seems to highlight the problem of taking way too much stock into bowl results.
It speaks to the issue of the lack of inter-conference cross over during the season. A weak conference can make a team look much better than it is, if that team doesn't play tough out of conference opponents. Michigan's out of conference opponents that year were CMU, ND (who had a good, 3-loss season), Vanderbilt, and Ball State. OSU's out of conference opponents were N. Illinois, Texas (who had a good, 3-loss season), Cincinnati, and Bowling Green.
Michigan and OSU ran through relatively weak schedules before matching up evenly with one another. There's nothing in their regular season to suggest that they were the best teams in the nation (good or great teams, sure, but not best in the nation). The bowl games (both games; it's not like one team dropped the ball, both teams got man-handled) just exposed the emperor's lack of clothes.
I disagree that Florida was just a bad match-up against OSU. I think UM and OSU were simply overrated as 1 and 2, and their performances in their bowl games showcased that. Aside from OSU's repeat appearance, and repeat man-handling, the next season, the Big10 hasn't put a team in the title game since. The Big10 is weak right now and really has been for a while. Those UM and OSU teams might have been great teams (and they were great, in my opinion), but they were not best in the nation. And I think that exposure was a bad indicator of the quality the conference was headed in.
[Side note: I'm sorry, but no UM team should ever have the excuse that they had to "settle for the Rose Bowl." I don't care if they were close to the title game or that they had been to the Rose Bowl twice in the past three seasons (you forgot about the USC-Texas match-up the year before). Michigan hadn't, and still hasn't, won a Rose Bowl since the 1997 season - that should be reason enough to get it up for that game. Plus, it's the goddamned Rose Bowl.]
IMO, there can always be discussions about who the best team was in any given year. There won't be true champions until top teams start playing each other during the regular season, teams start crossing the country, and we get more than 1 round (not counting title game) of a playoff.
If the SEC were to win 7 in a row in with these conditions then so be it, but I bet they wouldn't.
I am always amused by this idea of "SEC fans" and "Big Ten fans."
If Ohio State or some other Big Ten team goes and wins the MNC, then I will be disappointed because it means my own team didn't fare as well as I'd hoped. I'm not going to be out celebrating and chanting "B-1-G! B-1-G!" I find it very difficult to believe that fans of Auburn or LSU or other SEC teams were really all that excited about getting their asses kicked by Alabana the past two seasons. The whole "S-E-C! S-E-C!" thing just strikes me as some loser thing that fans of the other, non-MNC-winning SEC teams, say to make themselves feel better.
Yeah, it's an interesting, and odd, phenomenon.
My wife is a Dukie. If there is one thing you learn quickly about the ACC in basketball, it's that they think that every other conference is waaaay beneath them. They are like the SEC is in football . . . lots of success in NC's, but it's really only by a couple of teams.
So I asked her if she ever rooted for UNC in an NC game because they carry the banner for the conference. "ACC! ACC! ACC!" She told me in unequivical terms "NEVER!" The Dukies absolutely hated the Fab Five, but she told me they were all rooting for the Fab Five against UNC in 1993.
I find it hard to believe that LSU or Florida would ever pull for Alabama in an NC game, "SEC!, SEC!, SEC!" be damned. That's for loser teams that need something to hang onto like barnacles.
I would never root for OSU or MSU in an NC game. And even if a feel-good team I don't hate like NW were to win it, I would not parade around like I won some thing.
You're only a fan of your conference when it's not worthwhile being a fan of your team.
a co-worker of mine a few years ago (2006) was a UF grad and ALWAYS brought up the "strength of schedule" and superiority of SEC schools compared to those in the B1G.
It used to drive me nuts, which may be the reason he always brought it up... :)
Well, I can understand if a person is a fan of Florida and wants to make some argument about why Florida is great because they played a tougher schedule or something like that. What I don't get are these people who cheer for the SEC as though it's a team in and of itself.
I am unequivocally not saying that I understand this practice, but I can say with certainty that it is very frequently used. Living in the Southeast has really solidified this fact for me. I do think it's more of a "Transitive Property" type of feeling (Ex. "My Team only lost two Alabama by 14 and LSU by 7, so because Alabama beat ND by 365 My Team could have beaten them too"). Or, largely because of OSU and UofM's relative weakness the past few years, people assume that the entire conference is now just a pathetic attempt at "Grown Man Football." The fact of the matter is, in my experiences, when an SEC fan cannot root for his/her team that indiviidual ALWAYS defaults to support the whole "S-E-C" mantra.
I found a site that had various breakdowns of BCS polls.
Overall, the split between the SEC and Big 12 is almost even. In the whole of the BCS era, they both have had representatives in about 20% of the available positions in the final standings (so, about 40% of nearly 300 available slots). In the same period, Big Ten representation runs at about 16% of all available spots.
It is interesting to note, however, that from 2003-2005, the SEC expereinced three consecutive years of having 5 representatives in the final BCS standings, so the hype - if that is what it is - may have begun before Meyer.
Since 2007, however, SEC relative representation has actually increased only slightly (less than 1%), but it is indeed representation from other major conferences that has taken a hit in the polls. Big 12, Big 10, ACC and Pac-12 representation in the final standings are all down. For three straight years, in fact, the SEC has taken 6 slots in the final standings. From 2010-2012, in fact, it broke down like this:
Total appearances in three polls (2010-2012) - SEC has 18, the Big 12 has 13, the Big Ten has 11, the Pac-12 has 8 and the ACC has 6.
EDIT: In response to GoBlueInNYC below, there is also the interesting phenomenon on the back end of these polls in the last few years of spots being occupied by WAC, MAC and other mid-major conferences while SEC representation remains fairly constant. I wasn't speaking about the rankings so much but more about how I think Urban Meyer sort of gave a face in 2006 to something that might have been happening already in the polls.
The debate, though, is whether those rankings are justified. It could easily be that the SEC is just a better conference that the rest of the BCS, and therefore deserving of those extra spots. Alternatively, one could just as easily argue that it's voters buying into hype, and the SEC is landing those rankings based on reputation rather than production.
I guess I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away here.
As far as the hype, does the NFL buy that? They drafted more players from the SEC than any conference. Twice as many. 32 from the East and 31 from the West with the next conference as 31 from the ACC. Either the NFL is wasting a great deal of money to perpetuate the SEC machine or SEC matchups are the ones with the greatest number of future NFL players facing off against each other.
Does the area of play really matter? In the Alabama Notre Dame game there were more ND fans than UA fans even though Miami is closer to Alabama.