Best Scoring Defenses of the Last 20 Years
- Thread starter Mavric
- Start date
What would be interesting about this would be a ranking based on out of conference games.
There's a perception (shared by me) that the SEC and B10 have been relatively awful in terms of scoring offense, which makes them look much better defensively. I'd be interested to see whether the numbers play out that way OOC.
Of course the SEC would be bolstered by the truly awful OOC schedules that they tend to play, but that could be normalized by looking at only P5 competition.
There's a perception (shared by me) that the SEC and B10 have been relatively awful in terms of scoring offense, which makes them look much better defensively. I'd be interested to see whether the numbers play out that way OOC.
Of course the SEC would be bolstered by the truly awful OOC schedules that they tend to play, but that could be normalized by looking at only P5 competition.
NUance
Assistant Coach
But isn't the OOC schedule each team plays generally much easier than their conference schedule? It seems like each year we play a couple of warm-up games, at home, to teams that are worse and have worse offenses than our avg conference games (Fresno. Maybe Wyoming.). And then we'll play a team, sometimes two, that's decent. (Oregon.)
Red Five
Heisman Trophy Winner
Not really. Most of them play 1 P5 OOC game and then crap. Similar to how the rest of the P5 teams do. They just get a bad rap for playing Jacksonville St in week 12 instead of week 1.
Ole Miss and Miss St seem to be the biggest offenders of dodging a P5 team. But Alabama, LSU, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, So Carolina, and Georgia all routinely follow the 1 P5 (sometimes 2) and then cupcakes.
Landlord
Banned
Alabama plays USC this year, LSU plays Wisconsin, USC plays Clemson every year, Florida plays Florida State every year, Georgia plays Ga Tech and UNC, etc.
They're pretty on par with other big time P5 teams. One good to really good P5 opponent, and 2-3 creampuffs. Just like us, just like almost everyone.
Saunders
Heisman Trophy Winner
I think there's some truth to it.The SEC doesn't play games outside its footprint, will continue to play 1 less conference game (one more cupcake to pad stats), and they play more fcs teams than anyone else too. Florida hasn't left the state for an OOC game since 1992, and the last time an SEC team headed west of the eastern/central time zones in the regular season was... 2009?
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Red Five
Heisman Trophy Winner
cm was saying the SEC was "exceeding bad" and schedules "almost no one in the OOC schedule". I was pointing out they pretty much do it the same as everyone else. Are they a little weaker? Probably.
Yes, they only play 8 conference games, but so does the ACC, and so did the B1G until this year, so historically that is a moot point. Personally, I don't get too worked up over one FCS team on the schedule. What's the difference between playing McNeese St and Eastern Michigan? But playing 2 a year is bad form.
Florida follows the standard 1 P5 and the rest cupcake strategy. It just happens that their 1 is Florida St every year (and some years they also toss in Miami).
And why would they need to go to the west coast to play? Nebraska tends to go there every few years to help with recruiting. The SEC schools have all the recruiting they need in the south, so why leave if you don't have to? Also, LSU played at Syracuse last year and at Lambeau this year. Is that all that different than playing a game at Colorado or Washington?
Saunders
Heisman Trophy Winner
Oh yeah, forgot about LSU. They're the one team to do it (I believe they were the last team too, traveling to Washington in 2009). I don't really count Lambeau though, because neutral site games are a far cry from playing a hostile road game
It's not so much about traveling to the west coast, as it is choosing to not play home and homes, scheduling more cupcakes than other leagues, which inflates your record, then bragging about beating a bunch of "good SEC" teams that didn't play anybody outside the conference. They then get the benefit of the doubt because of the circular logic, which has guaranteed them at championship game appearance each of the last 10 years, when there were other deserving teams.
Red Five
Heisman Trophy Winner
The real genius of the SEC is that they play conference games early. So when preseason #20 A&M destroys preseason #8 South Carolina, A&M vaults into the top 10. Then #6 A&M gets destroyed by #15 Miss St, Miss St vaults into the top 5. Never mind that both A&M and South Carolina are junk teams.
Saunders
Heisman Trophy Winner
Yup, and then they basically get bye weeks the weekend before Thanksgiving, letting other teams knock each other off, and they move up by default.
Gd it.
I just lost my post trying to paste links on phone. I'll sum up. No need to defend them. A couple of articles on point:
http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles/2044073-why-other-conferences-should-boycott-scheduling-sec-football-teams
http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/sec-faces-weakest-non-conference-sked/
The SEC is consistently awful when it comes to scheduling. Does anyone else play FCS anymore?
Red Five
Heisman Trophy Winner
Yes.
http://athlonsports.com/college-football/15-best-fbs-vs-fcs-football-games-2016
Every P5 conference has FCS teams on their schedule this year.
