I don't think there is really any argument that the SEC is the best overall conference in College Football. The last three national champions came from the conference, LSU also won in 2003, and Auburn had an undefeated season but no championship in 2004. But just how dominant is the conference?Recruiting:
Taking the www.rivals.com recruiting rankings over the past five seasons (to account for Redshirt Seniors) and averaging the rankings, there are 4 SEC teams in the top 10, and 9 SEC teams in the top 25:#2 Florida
#3 Georgia
#4 Alabama
#8 LSU
#12 Auburn
#13 Tennessee
#21 Ole Miss
#25 Arkansas
For comparison sake, no conference has any more than 1 team in the top ten, and the ACC has 6 in the top 25.
Out of conference games:
Each school in the SEC plays four out of conference games each season. Most of the time they play one really good game (Alabama vs. Va Tech, Georgia vs. Georgia Tech, Florida vs. Florida State etc...) two pretty mediocre games, and one just terrible game. But that is what most big conference schools do too. Here is the out of conference winning percentage of each BCS conference this season:SEC: .853
Big East: .805
Big 10: .750
Big 12: .729
Pac 10: .689
ACC: .659
Once again, the SEC comes out on top. To be fair, there are still 7 out of conference games left on the SEC schedule - 3 more than the next biggest conference - but many of those are weaker tune up style games.
NFL Draft:
The SEC had the most players taken in last years NFL draft as well:SEC: 37
ACC: 33
Pac 10: 32
Big 10: 28
Big 12: 28
Big East: 27
This season Bowl Eligibility
Currently, the SEC has officially 9 Bowl Tie Ins with 10 assuming the BCS takes two teams. There is a chance that they won't even be able to fill that
Already Bowl Eligible:
Florida
Alabama
LSU
Auburn
South Carolina
Ole Miss
Teams with 5 wins (and their opponents remaining)
Georgia (Auburn, Kentucky, Georgia Tech)
Tennessee (Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Kentucky)
Arkansas (Troy, Mississippi State, LSU)
Kentucky (Vanderbilt, Georgia, Tennessee)
Teams with 4 wins (and remaining opponents)
Mississippi State (Alabama, Arkansas, Ole Miss)
Tennessee and Arkansas are nearly guaranteed to pick up their 6th win, Kentucky definitily should, and Georgia is capable of winning all of those games, or losing all of those games. I figure they will win at least two of them however.
Mississippi State has the toughest road probably needing to win both of their last two games to get bowl eligible and likely will not do it, but it is possible
This post may not have been necessary to prove the dominance of the SEC over any and all other conferences, but it was certainly fun to put it all on paper.
How anyone, let alone two, teams could possibly come out of this conference undefeated going into the title game is simply amazing. Lot of games to be played, but that is how it looks right now.
I certainly agree that the SEC is dominant as far as the top-echelon goes: they have a lot of National Championships, including recently, and I would put our top 2 (UF and UA) up against the top of any other conference (OSU/Iowa, Texas, USC/Oregon, whoever the hell is supposed to be good in the ACC). But it seems like after LSU, the level kind of drops off.
ReplyDeleteBut then, it can be hard to tell, since there's usually only 1 or 2 big out of conference games a year (including the bowl game). the SEC seemed to do about as well as any other dominant conference this past year - sent more teams to bowl games than PAC-10, so more won, but had a worse percentage.
Of course, Kentucky and Vanderbilt both won their bowl games. That's pretty awesome. Too bad it still doesn't make up for Bama losing to Utah...
I agree there is a dropoff, but that is in conference. Alabama, Florida, and LSU all have to beat someone....and those are mostly the in conference teams. Right now I think there are a "big 3" and after that probably 5-6 in the middle.
ReplyDeleteOn of our problems in bowl games is that some of them are like the Big 10 #2 against the SEC #4 or something like that so its not a true test of 1v1, 2v2 etc.
I would like to see an opening weekend tournament where you take two conferences (SEC vs. Big 12) and play all Bama v Texas, Florida v Oklahoma etc...