Gray Area OT: Bob Stoops Makes Good Point about SEC defenses

I know Stoops's comment earlier this year about the SEC was prompted by a direct question from a reporter about Oklahoma's recruiting and encroachment from SEC teams, even some of the bottom of the league teams.

... and frankly, until we're at the top of the B1G, we've got nothing to crow about.  I seem to recall losing to SC in a bowl game last year, and they're hardly the top of the SEC.

Point is, the SEC has had two of the 3-5 best teams in the country each year for the last decade.  The middle of the conference has, on balance, been better than the middle of anyone else's conference.  By what measure are they not the best football conference in the country? 

Yeah, they have bottom feeders.  However, if you don't want to be impaled by glass shards, someone other than a B1G fan should heave that particular stone.

While the SEC is probably the best football conference, what they are clearly the undisputed #1 at is self-promotion.  As someone upthread mentioned, they blather endlessly about how "SEC defenses are dominant!!"  right up to the point where they have a 43-40 game like the LSU-Georgia game last weekend, at which point they they shift the narritive to "SEC Offenses are unstoppable!!"  And of course it is all done amidst the backdrop of the myth that their players are magically faster than anyone elses players.

Part of the reason they have won so many titles in a row is that their conference is damn good.  But part of it is that they have marketed themselves into a position that the polls always place an SEC team into the BcS title game.  No other conference gets the BcS love the SEC gets.  A 1-loss SEC team always goes over any other 1-loss team.  And in a 1-game playoff, getting to the title game is about 90% of winnning the championship.  The SEC has mastered the art of getting peopel to vote them into the title game mastered, right down to the whine-fest we saw in 2006.

I expect that as we see a playoff come around, the SEC will be winning less titles.  I could be wrong, but I suspect the fact that they won't have a monopoly on playing in the title game anymore will make it harder for them to win every year. 

vs. ND. Although I still question Kelly's reluctance to take advantage of his 5 star RBs and talented OLmen, a 35 with good size up front provides and the type of athletes he has on the second  two levels can definitely make top notch qbs flinch. No, Rees is not that caliber, but when run with the correct personnel, not unlike the spread and shred with an olympic type sprinter at one of the two key positions in the backfield presents unique challenges.  This was really evident last night watching TX with their "prototypical" sized DL and backers but also about a 1/2 too slow to defend against a team that forces you to cover more ground than a conventional offense will.  Only a couple teams in the country right now can still adequately run standard packages with Bama, of course, being one of the few.  Even with our recruiting classes since Hoke, we're a long way away from being ready to line up against an ORE or similar teams. These coaches realized what was going on and the only way to mitigate the damages of a stockpile of speed on offense is to do likewise on defense with larger players who are able to maintain the speed possessed prior to bulking up.   Strength and speed has always been the answer, but when it's possessed by an entire 11 man unit, you can raise Holy Hell!!!!  Forces Qbs to throw into vacated areas only to realize they've fell directly into the trap DCs possessing these athletes have set.  OU will be dangerous with their new defensive packages if they are able to score like their offenses of the past.