Trying To Understand The SEC’s Perennial Respect

Posted on Oct 23, 2009 in NCAAF

Here we go again. The annual measuring of college football conferences against each other. And once again, the SEC comes out on top. My big question though, is “why?” Don’t get me wrong, the SEC is a great conference that I always enjoying watching play football, but are SEC teams really that much more talented, that much faster, that much bigger, year in and year out that they deserve the largely self-appointed title of “best college football conference” every year?

My opinion in short: No!

Consider this: The PAC-10 is 11-8 vs. the SEC in head-to-head matchups this decade. Am I arguing that this means the PAC-10 is “better” than the SEC? No. Am I arguing that this statistic is a significant blow to the assertion that the SEC is the “best”? Yes. And of those 19 matchups, the PAC-10 team was favored to win in only 7.The SEC, however, has more tradition, crazier fans, pays their coaches more, and have bigger stadium, all of which create the strong desire and perception that the conference may, in fact, be “better.”

At the end of the day though, the only thing that matters is what shows up in the Win/Loss column, and the point I’m trying to make is that when comparing against the SEC, other conferences do NOT have anything to apologize for

What about the out-of-conference scheduling? Maybe the SEC plays a tough in conference schedule and maybe they don’t. We’d never know because they always play a non-conference littered with DIAA schools and also rans from the Sun Belt. Then, with 5 or 6 ranked teams as a result of their ill-gotten 4-0 records they get credit for beating each other instead of getting blame for losing to an overrated team.

So Florida’s inconference schedule must be killer this year, right? When do they play Bama. How about Ole Miss? Oh, they don’t? They only play 8 conference games despite having 12 teams? That’s pretty convenient.

Bottom line is, I’m not trying to make the case that the SEC sucks as a conference. But, can we stop with the perennial anointment of the SEC as the greatest conference in the history of the universe?

There is one thing that the SEC is incredibly formidable in, however…