The Great Debate: SEC  

Posted by Frazier

I see you trying your lawyer-ly best on this one, but it's not going to save you this time, big man. Of course the SEC is overrated if you choose to use the most absurd hyperbole imaginable. EVERYONE is overrated if you rate them higher than anyone can reasonably attain.

It's like saying the 1927 Yankees are "overrated" if you are arguing against the premise "The 1927 Yankees are the finest collection of human beings ever assembled."

Now, if you were to argue that they are "overrated" based on the argument that "The 1927 Yankees are the greatest baseball team ever assembled" well, that's a different story. (Which we're not about to get in to here, since we're all about college football).

So if the argument is "The SEC is a no-holds-barred death match every single week, where losing teams are burned at the stake, and winning only comes second to physically surviving the game" well, you're probably right. I mean, at the end of the day the SEC is just a very, very good football conference. Not some gladiator style fight in the Roman Coliseum.

On the other hand, if we're arguing that the SEC is, far and away, and by a wide margin, the best college football conference in America, well, it's hard to say they're overrated. Impossible, actually. They finished the season with possibly the 2 best teams in the country, and SIX top 25 teams (2 more than the next closest conference).

You want to talk depth? Over the past 15 seasons, 4 different SEC teams (Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, LSU) have won a national title, and another one (Auburn) has gone undefeated TWICE and been shut out of the title game. Now THAT is some depth.

3 comments

Anonymous   says 12:09 PM

Thank you! I'm glad someone has made a point on this topic. I kills me to hear the argumment that the SEC doesnt consistently have the best record in Bowl Games. I try to explain to these people that the SEC is at a disadvantage in most Bowl Games they play in, being matched-up with the SEC #4 vs the Big12 #2 and such. Even though we still win that Game most of the time! The seem to miss the fact that if a USC or Ohio St. had to play an SEC team every week, they would not be undefeated at the end of every other year.

Anonymous   says 1:11 PM

Shawn raises an excellent point. The SEC often has SO many good teams, that in bowl situations they are forced to bite off more than they can chew. That shouldn't be taken to mean that the league is "overrated" but that a middling SEC team isn't always going to beat the elite of another conference. But when the big boys match up, the SEC is dominant.

Thanks for the comment Shawn, it's great to see our readers have so much common sense.

Walter   says 5:44 PM

Wait a minute. Are you guys really contending that, for example, Tennessee should be given some slack for being dismantled by Penn State because TN was the SEC #6 and Penn State was the Big 10 #4? How about Wisconsin (Big 10 #3) vs. Arkansas (SEC #3)? Or Auburn-Nebraska? Your point is a good one in theory but it doesn't really work out in real life. The only team this year that could make the claim that the strength of the SEC led them to be overmatched in their bowl game was Arkansas (being forced to face an 11 win Wisconsin team), but even that is flimsy.

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