Downturn of the SEC

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
The biggest sign of the SEC's decline can be seen not just in the polls, in which the second highest ranked SEC team is Auburn at #14, but in its longtime rivalry with the ACC. All-time, the SEC is 299-154-10 against the ACC. This year, the tables are turned and the SEC is a mere 3-6.

The ACC has now posted a winning record against the SEC in two of the past three seasons. The previous two losing seasons to the ACC were in 2002 and 1999. The ACC has overturned over a decade's worth of utter dominance by the SEC, and it's not looking like an accident.

At root of the problem is that Nick Saban has effectively run off all of his coaching peers. There are only four coaches in the conference who have been at their current job for five or more years, and only Saban has lasted at least a decade. Dan Mullen is the only SEC coach other than Saban who has been at his job for more than five years. He's the sole survivor of the Saban Era.

There is a batch of four coaches with precisely four years of experience at their current job. It's been a mixed bag. Gus Malzahn has alternated between great seasons and terrible ones, Butch Jones is dodging rumors of his imminent demise, Bret Bielema has yet to post a winning record in conference play at Arkansas, and Mark Stoops warded off the axe this year. This means that the coach with at least a four year tenure with the second-best winning percentage in the SEC is Kevin Sumlin.

Let that sink in. Kevin Sumlin is arguably the most successful coach in the SEC not named Nick Saban. Ask an Aggie fan how happy they are with the job he's done.
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Link

 
Compare the SEC coaches to the rest of the nation, and you can see how the star is fading. Below is the average coaching records of each conference by career and at their current job. I've listed the SEC twice, once with Saban, and once without.
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Code: 
Conference Career   W     L     Pct      Current   W     L     Pct
Big 12      11.7   91.4  50.6  0.644       8.9    73.2  36.0  0.670
SEC          9.6   54.6  30.2  0.644       3.8    29.6  17.2  0.633
MAC         11.7   68.5  38.2  0.642       3.9    22.9  24.8  0.481
ACC         14.1   81.6  45.6  0.642       4.5    34.4  21.6  0.614
Pac-12      11.3   71.7  44.0  0.620       4.8    34.8  23.3  0.600
Big Ten     10.8   57.9  36.7  0.612       4.6    34.4  22.3  0.607 
SEC No Saban 7.5   42.8  27.9  0.605       3.3    23.0  17.2  0.573
AAC          7.0   51.0  33.5  0.604       3.1    20.4  15.8  0.564
MWC          8.0   45.4  34.4  0.569       3.8    24.2  21.7  0.527
Sun Belt     6.2   39.0  30.2  0.564       3.3    18.9  17.5  0.519
CUSA         8.8   36.2  33.9  0.517       4.0    23.9  23.3  0.506
 
does this mean less than 10 sec teams in the preseason polls next year?

 
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Think myself and a lot of others could see this coming just from their coaching hires. Seems they only want to hire from within their own conference instead of expanding. For instance Florida and Georgia taking Saban disciples, Missouri promoting their DC and South Carolina.....for whatever reason thinking Muschamp was the best choice.

Even Orgeron at LSU, sure he did well there as an interim, but is that really the best LSU could do after Herman and Jimbo declined?

 
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