thepostgame.com - Why the SEC isn't as Great in Football as You'd Think
Didn't see this posted, but thepostgame.com (never really heard of it) put up this article that attempts to explain the SEC's somewhat mythical dominance of CFB. Some highlights:
Witness the record since the start of the BCS era in 1998:
SEC vs. PAC-12 regular season: 10-12 SEC vs. PAC-12 bowl games: 1-0
SEC vs. Big 12 regular season: 6-10 SEC vs. Big 12 bowl games: 21-8
SEC vs. ACC regular season: 42-36 SEC vs. ACC bowl games: 16-9
SEC vs. Big 10 regular season: 7-4 SEC vs. Big 10 bowl games: 19-19
SEC vs. Big East regular season: 16-15 SEC vs. Big East bowl game: 3-8
3-8 vs Big East? Is that real?
Despite being approximately equal to other conferences in most quantifiable categories, the SEC and other southern schools are unfairly presented with championship opportunities and favors on what is far from a level playing field.
The SEC is better than other conferences at media manipulation and pretending that fiction is fact and fact is fiction. But as a top-to-bottom conference it is not better at football. The numbers bear that out.
Not much new here that hasn't already been said on these boards, but it's nice to see that the media is starting to recognize that the SEC is much over-hyped. I don't think there's any question that the SEC hasn't been the best football conference for a few years now, but the gap isn't nearly as big as the Worldwide Leader would like you to believe.
Thoughts?
August 24th, 2012 at 2:01 PM ^
How many National Championships do they own from the last 7 years? Oh right, about that.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:08 PM ^
I can see why you'd defend over rating and empty hype with all of your being.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:18 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 10:25 PM ^
I am not defending anything. But I guarantee that if ND or UM played any of those teams in the NC game the last 7 years, we'd have shit the bed and got blown out. And if you deny that, well... I can't help your delusion issues.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:23 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 2:04 PM ^
Anyone who pays attention and didn't start watching football in the last 5 years knows all of this.
The light of knowledge shall show you the way.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:07 PM ^
But they won more than half of the BCS games. thanks OSU.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:44 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 2:10 PM ^
Best post here in a long time, unWave...thanks. College football is not full of hype...it IS hype (and $$$).
August 24th, 2012 at 2:09 PM ^
There are gaping holes in the reasoning of this article (if I remember correctly from when I last read it). I won’t comment on the conclusion because I suspect most people have already made up their mind on that already, but the arguments in this article are weak.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:48 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 3:08 PM ^
I'm not so pretentious to think of myself as one of the world's greatest minds. Please do indulge us in the gaping holes and weak arguments. I thought he laid it out pretty damn squarely.
August 24th, 2012 at 3:16 PM ^
“So what's behind such a radical shift in fortune, such a statistical improbability? It certainly isn't on-field performance. Judging by inter-conference records -- that is to say actual games as opposed to media guesswork and bestowed rankings -- the SEC plays other BCS conferences about equally. Witness the record since the start of the BCS era in 1998:”
Here the writer lists a bunch of SEC records against other conferences. These numbers don’t have any context though, so they’re effectively useless. For all we know (from just those numbers alone), the PAC-12’s 12-10 record against the SEC could be the result of a bunch of Vanderbilt v.
“To SEC apologists who claim that the SEC's overall winning records in bowl games is evidence of success in "games that matter" against "quality opponents," I offer the counter-argument that because bowl game pairings are more easily manipulated than regular-season games, and because SEC teams frequently play in bowls near home stadiums, they often result in more favorable match-ups for SEC teams.”
Bowl games are actually more likely to produce matchups between correspondingly good teams (the 3rd best Big Ten team against the 3rd best SEC team) than regular season games because of the way bowl tie-ins work. For this, the bowl records ARE a more interesting and reliable statistic. And every bowl game I’ve been to (I’ve been to a few of them) has had about 50/50 fan turnout, or else it was slanted in our favor. I don’t buy the quasi home game argument.
“So, if the SEC plays other conferences about even, why do SEC teams keep winning national championships? That answer, of course, is the BCS and its corporate underwriters, who have created a reliable business model for determining national champions that is in all respects a self-fulfilling prophecy designed to protect its primary investment.”
Oh, of course!!! And here I was thinking it was because they kept winning the National Championship game.
“To be the best, so goes to the old sports adage, you've got to beat the best. But since only SEC teams are consistently declared the best, only SEC teams get the chance to prove themselves against "the best."
Except, you know, in the National Championship game where other conferences have consistently failed to capitalize on that chance.
“In 2010, for example, the Auburn Tigers began the season with a consensus ranking of #23, behind SEC rivals
Does anyone really think
“Consider again that the BCS was created by then-SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, also known as the "godfather of the BCS," a man who "attached plastic explosives to college football" and blew it up, according to an ESPN web post. ESPN, of course, is the commercial entity that dominates the college football landscape, and which has a near incalculable economic interest in promoting the nationwide perception of the SEC's elite status.”
CBS has more of an interest in the SEC’s success, but whatever. Did ESPN craft the perception, or are they just profiting off it? I don’t have a good answer to this. Neither does the writer. I’m going to stop, because this is getting long. I do agree that some of the SEC’s success is hype, but not to the extent this guy claims. Sorry, by the way. Didn’t mean to come across as pretentious. Perhaps “gaping” was a bit much.
August 24th, 2012 at 3:30 PM ^
you were pretentious at all. Sorry about that.
I see what you're saying in the head to head records. What I think this guy's strongest point is those damn pre season rankings. When there's 3 or 4 SEC teams in the top ten and they all get a chance to play each other it's tough for a B1G or Pac team to pass them simply because they don't get a chance to play that amount of arbitrarily picked "top" teams.
How about that 10 spot drop for Oregon? Only a 1 spot drop for Bama for losing to the same team and actually looking worse doing it? At home?
There's holes in any argument but I think this guy got more right than wrong on this one.
August 24th, 2012 at 4:09 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 6:25 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 3:48 PM ^
I too would like a more in-depth analysis.
August 24th, 2012 at 3:20 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 3:27 PM ^
You have to choose: play a heck of a lot more games to get the necessary sample size to determine who’s good enough to play in the BCS bowls, or use past and expected performance as a metric.
August 24th, 2012 at 4:01 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 3:30 PM ^
...Agreed. On top of it, no one mentions that the SEC's in-conference record is only .500.
August 24th, 2012 at 6:25 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 2:12 PM ^
Until the other conferences can produce national champions and win the spotlight games against the ESS EEE CEE, all of these articles seem like sour grapes. I've heard from somewhere Michigan has a primetime matchup against an SEC member soon, we should start there.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:16 PM ^
in bowl games, seems pretty good to me. Its suprising that they are tied with the big ten but this sample is larger than what the media usually looks at, which is the last couple of years. Don't forget the media will always pick those stats which prove their point but for the SEC they have actually been quite dominant in recent memory as much as we hate to admit it and look for every excuse to knock them.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:16 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 2:17 PM ^
If/when UM beats Alabama, watch how the WWL will start talking about how Alabama's entire D had to be replaced and that it's still early in the season and how the game didn't reflect the actual strength of the teams (UM got lucky bounces, etc.). I know people hate 'em, but this is why I think we need to give more, not less, power to the computers to pick the top teams.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:54 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 3:24 PM ^
I agree that a playoff is better than a poll that picks a top 2. My concern is that the conference champ is often based on a single conference championship game rather than an entire season (imagine if GA had beaten LSU last year). I think a 4-team playoff with no more than 1 team from each conference would work, but it would be good to find a better way to select the best team from each conference (e.g., in-conference regular season record). My main point on computers is that human polls are way too subjective. Science keeps showing the pitfalls of human judgment.
August 24th, 2012 at 4:07 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 2:22 PM ^
The SEC is great because they rarely have to leave the south or warm climates late in the season, they oversign the hell out of kids, they sit on the huge southern HS talent pool, have lower academic standards than most Big Ten institutions, and then there are the rumors of a run-away booster climate and $500 hand shakes. Taking this into account with some great programs with good tradition and their dominance is explained.
The real question would be is how good would the SEC really be if they played by the same rules and ethics that the Big Ten plays with?
August 24th, 2012 at 2:47 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 2:53 PM ^
This is Michigan Fergodsakes! Coach Hoke agrees:
August 24th, 2012 at 4:19 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 2:22 PM ^
Just win baby.
August 24th, 2012 at 2:31 PM ^
They're good at the top of their conference. They show well in marque games, particularly bowl games. This feeds into the hype train and makes their schedules seem harder, which is how you get things like a team who lost against the only good team on the schedule, who didn't even win their division, playing for a NC.
August 24th, 2012 at 3:16 PM ^
ESPN just had an article about how the depth on the SEC teams is what makes the conference the best. Specifically they looked at the depth on Alabama and LSU's lines and the QB depth at Florida when it was Tebow, Brantley, Newton.
So basically their #1 advantage is oversigning. Once this gets reigned in it should help to level the playing field.
August 24th, 2012 at 3:30 PM ^
The SEC is top-heavy, which generates their hype. The top of the SEC gets it done, no doubt. They have recent NC wins against the B1G, PAC, and B12. You can't argue against that.
What baffles me is that the Pac12 is in the same situation. You have a few elite teams at the top - USC, Oregan, recently Stanford - and then a bunch of mush.
But unlike the SEC, the Pac12 is pounded on relentlessly for being exactly what it is . . . a mediocre conference with a couple of strong teams.
Meanwhile the SEC is hyped as the NFL south. Teams like Arkansas and South Carolina are in the conversation for the NC just because they are in the SEC.
August 24th, 2012 at 3:57 PM ^
I'm not sure the SEC is really top-heavy. Four different schools have won MNCs in recent years (Alabama , Auburn, LSU, Florida), and several other teams have been consistently very good (Georgia, Arkansas, South Carolina). They do have a couple of perennial bottom-feeders (UK, Vanderbilt), but so does every conference.
August 24th, 2012 at 4:23 PM ^
First off, the middlings of the SEC are not consistently better than the middlings of other conferences, which is why you have the parity in these records. I would argue, however, that in the last 5-6 years, the top teams of the SEC have been materially better than the top teams in all of the other conferences, except a few years of USC and maybe Oregon. I know you guys have your conspiracy theories, but let's be real....when the top SECs go against the top others, it has been VERY once sided.
I believe that this coincides with the rise of the recruiting websites. Before weekly showcases, recruiting websites, etc. there was a more narrow dispersal of offers. Now, every school offers every one of the top 100 recruits in the country (for the most part). As a result, you have head to head battles for all of the top recruits. And while I love Michigan, you are rarely going to pull top talent out of the south (except Denard) to come up here if they have offers from the top SECs.
From here, I would argue that the southeast has better high school football talent than the midwest / northeast. While I think that the B1G will compete with them now that Hoke and Meyer are recruiting like jedis, leaving sparty and wisconsin with empty cupboards (I also blame parity in the B1G over the last 5-10 years for our futile efforts against the SEC elite), the southeast has more great high school football players. Being warm and less urban than Michigan and Ohio, more kids play football...not to mention year around. This is the same reason that basketball isnt great in the SEC, while the colder areas dominate.
August 24th, 2012 at 5:34 PM ^
August 24th, 2012 at 5:49 PM ^
I read this article and thought about the threada few weeks ago where we broke down the CBS Sports strength of schedule rankings. I threw the chart into Excel, and the Big Ten came to an average of 18, the Pac-12 was about 24, and the SEC was at 40, as I recall. There really is a disparity between the hype and the reality, but it isn't just the schedule.
I thought about comparing a couple surface things like wins and losses, so I took the SEC and Big Ten back four seasons for simplicity, and the results were still sort of intriguing - they break down along similar lines. For example, in that time frame, the SEC has one 14-game winner and two 13-game winners (the former made possible by the conference championship plus bowl format, which we only introduced last year, of course). Each conference has had a team win 12 games once, and then after that, the Big Ten has seen 11 wins nine times, whereas it has only been seen three times in the SEC in that period. The Big Ten also has more 9-game winners and 7-game winners, whereas the SEC has more 8-game winners and 5-game winners in the same period. Long story short, even with this very cursory statistic, the distributions are similar - both hover around an 8-5 or 7-6 average each year with a standard deviation of about 3 wins and 2 losses each year.
If the strength of schedule rankings are accepted as accurate, then the SEC is basically just as successful as the Big Ten, but against markedly worse competition overall. It's an interesting thing to consider, I think. Granted, the scope of this comparison is not big by any means.
August 24th, 2012 at 6:39 PM ^
I don't think there's any question that the SEC hasn't been the best football conference for a few years now,before deciding it doesn't mean what it's intended to mean, although it has a "You can't put too much water in a nuclear reactor" kind of pliability about it.
August 24th, 2012 at 7:07 PM ^
Again, I point to the raving abouyr Alabama's NFL level defense last year, when they didn't face an offense ranked above something in the 80s all year except Arkansas (I think). Their defense was rated highly because Bama is so good.
Our defense was rated highly because the offenses in the B1G were just putrid and incapable of moving the ball on my old high school defense (Davison, MI, we were awful).
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. They rotate winning programs just like other conferences do, and while they have a few programs at the top consistently for a decade or so (LSU, Bama), they also have the underachievers, like Georgia and Tennessee, then the rest, like SC, who pulled out a freak division title, much akin to Purdue or Northwestern winning one once a decade or so in the B1G. Just like us, they're top heavy, just with 4 big teams, (remember, they had more teams than we did for a while), and a bunch of middling squads, then the bottom feeders, like kentucky and vandy, and the Mississippis.
For us it's Usually Mich, OSU, Wiscy, and PSU that are perennial strong teams, with Purdue and Illinois and NW and Iowa and State making pushes every now and then, and then we get to the Indianas and gopherquest.
If you put B1G teams in the same poll places as SEC teams, and penalized them the same way, you'd see a lot more credit to Okie State losing last year on a day of tragedy, and Bama being properly penalized for blowing their big shot by dropping in the polls properly.