Does the SEC circle jerk finally end today?

So despite all talent rankings and unbiased computer rankings showing that the SEC has the best football teams, are we really still sitting here thinking that the SEC sucks because they, um, have to play each other? Which results in losses?

I posted this as a status but I'll put it here too. Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Alabama, Missouri, Auburn, and LSU have a combined 3 nonconference losses. To Miami, Clemson, and Oregon.

The SEC is really good, and I'm not sure why that's such a point of contention. At this point, the obsession with hating the SEC has pretty much overtaken the perceived obsession with how great the conference is

 
tschu said:
So despite all talent rankings and unbiased computer rankings showing that the SEC has the best football teams, are we really still sitting here thinking that the SEC sucks because they, um, have to play each other? Which results in losses?

I posted this as a status but I'll put it here too. Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Alabama, Missouri, Auburn, and LSU have a combined 3 nonconference losses. To Miami, Clemson, and Oregon.

The SEC is really good, and I'm not sure why that's such a point of contention. At this point, the obsession with hating the SEC has pretty much overtaken the perceived obsession with how great the conference is
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The three losses actually prove the point that everyone is making. Look at the other ooc games those teams have played. The only half decent wins were LSU over a mediocre TCU team and Alabama over a decent VT team and Carolina got very lucky to beat a good UCF team. The rest of the wins are simply laughable. Thus the point. Whenever the SEC has played above average teams this year they have loss. Thus they aren't that much more impressive than any other conference. Any other confernce would have the same record with that schedule.

Bama, their best team defeated a solid VT team. After Bama the rest of the SEC hasn't been better than any other conference. The bottom of the SEC has been just as bad, if not worse, than any other conference.

Florida played Toledo,

Carolina played North Carolina and UCF,

UGA played North Texas,

Vandy played Austin Peay, Umass and UAB,

Ole Miss played Southeast Missouri,

aTm played Rice and Sam Houston State,

Bama played Virginia Tech, Colorado State and Georgia State

Mizzou - Murray State, Toledo and Indiana

Auburn - Washington State, Arkansas Sate and Western Carolina

LSU- TCU, UAB and Kent

 
How does that differ from any other conference. Nebraska played Wyoming southern miss and South Dakota state. We can go through and post the schedule of every team in the big ten and every team in the sec if you like just to compare

 
Take the Big Ten. We'll go with the top 10 teams, roughly analogous to the top 11 of the 14 SEC teams I listed. Plus, nobody cares about the very bottom of a conference. (purdue and illinois, sorry bros, go sit at the kiddie table with Arkansas, Mississippi State, and Kentucky)

Big Ten Losses:

UCLA

UCF

Northern Illinois

Notre Dame

Navy

Missouri

Arizona State

So that's already worse, 7 losses compared to 3.

SEC Best Wins:

Alabama over Virginia Tech

Ole Miss over Texas

LSU over TCU

Missouri over Indiana

South Carolina over North Carolina

Auburn over Washington State?

A&M over SMU?

B1G Best wins:

Michigan over Notre Dame

...

Iowa over Iowa State??

Northwestern and Ohio State over Cal??

Northwestern and Penn State over Syracuse??

Guys we're basically looking at one good win from the Big Ten.

Anyways enough with cherry-picking binary wins and losses, let's look at Sagarin and how he ranks the conferences.

Oh look,

1. SEC

2. Pac-12

3. Big 12

4. Big Ten

5. ACC

No surprises there...

Let's look at the predictor rankings of the teams I've been talking about. Sagarin has two different predicative rankings now, a sort of modified ELO one and their old one. (BCS uses the Pure ELO ranking

Big Ten Predictor

8. Wisconsin

11. Ohio State

31. Michigan State

35. Michigan

36. Nebraska

42. Penn State

43. Iowa

45. Indiana

65. Northwestern

75. Minnesota

Big Ten ELO Predictor

8. Ohio State

10. Wisconsin

24. Michigan State

34. Michigan

43. Iowa

44. Nebraska

46. Penn State

57. Northwestern

51. Indiana

65. Minnesota

SEC Predictor

1. Alabama

5. LSU

9. Missouri

14. South Carolina

15. Texas A&M

20. Georgia

21. Florida

23. Auburn

39. Ole Miss

47. Vanderbilt

46. Tennessee

SEC ELO Predictor

1. Alabama

5. Missouri

6. LSU

7. Texas A&M

12. Georgia

13. Ole Miss

19. South Carolina

20. Florida

21. Auburn

36. Vanderbilt

38. Tennessee

I'm just not sure why we care so much that the SEC is the best conference. You can hate it all you want but that doesn't make it false. You can enjoy days like yesterday where several teams took hits knocking them out of the title hunt. But if you give a conference

1) recruiting hotbed location

2) warm weather

3) huge fanbases/support

4) $$$$$$$$

5) the ability to sign more athletes than other conferences

6) little control over shady things like oversigning, greyshirting, and illegal benefits

...don't act surprised when they're very good.

That's not to say that other conferences can't challenge them - the Pac-12 is not far behind the SEC this year with an Oregon team that could end their title streak.

 
Yet you conveniently leave out the SEC losses to Western Kentucky and Rutgers as well as the near losses to South Alabama and Bowling Green while highlighting every single BIG loss.

 
I'll never buy the SEC is the "best conference". It's simply the product of ESPNs hype machine, a $2B tv contract, and their attempt to protect their investment.

 
There's an unfair dichotomy that exists in the media that really gets me going.

Iowa almost beats Ohio State = B1G is a bad conference.

Ole Miss beats LSU = THE SEC IS SO DAMN GOOD.

 
Schu-

Question for you.. SEC vs Pac 12.... which is better?

I agree the SEC is a very good conference and blows the B1G out of the water, but I dont think it blows the PAC12 out of the water.

 
We have this discussion every year, it seems. The the January bowls come along, SEC wins the series, wins the National Championship and everyone shuts up for a minute only to start grumbling when some SEC team(s) looks less than invincible. Until we (the Big 10) can win those NYD games and someone can beat an SEC team in the title game, "SEC circle-jerk" will (and should) continue.

 
After this week, the only SEC teams that should be left in the top 10 should be Bama and Mizzou. And I'm still banking on Mizzou losing a couple. The SEC is not that good this year aside from Bama.

 
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