You don't think getting a new coach and a Heisman-level QB and dominating recruiting makes a difference? A&M, in Sumlin's first year, obliterated OU in the bowl game. They would have had a legit shot to be 12-0 and in the national title game that year had they stayed in the Big12. Even with that, A&M was mediocre at 4-4 last year in the SEC. And Missouri was #1 about 5 or 6 years ago in the Big12 too, so it's not like Pinkel doesn't have good teams every so often. The mediocre team that left the Big12 also went 2-6 in their first SEC year after going 5-4 in the Big12. The SEC has so much data backing up the fact that they have been the best conference for a while now, whether we like it or not. These attempts to downplay them at every juncture is bizarre. They have a known weakness - spread offenses - but otherwise have been absolutely dominant at the top of the conference. But they did beat OU and Oregon in NT games when both had dominant spread offenses too.
Bowl records are such a small sample; there's plenty of counterexamples; likewise, national championships, recruiting rankings both have an element of circularity to them. If everybody assumes that the SEC was great, and the SEC doesn't really have to prove it very much outside the confines of the SEC, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Witnesseth the LSU-Alabama TWICE IS NICE BECAUSE SEC IS DA BEST year. The middle and lower classes of the SEC weren't nearly as good as advertised, but the most laughably disproved assumption over the last 2+ years has been the "OH YEAH THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITH DAT 'GAINST AN ESS EE CEEE DEEFENSE" trope, which was used as a justification for the archaic and boring schemes employed by most of the teams in the SEC when it became obvious that spread and no-huddle offense (THAT'S JUST GIMMICKS WON'T WORK) had passed them by. This myth was destroyed repeatedly by Malzhan, but back then people could point to the SEC's own inherent greatness as the reason for it, but once the 2 non SEC teams came in and started tearing up DA ESS EE CEEE DEEFENSE with DA GIMMICK SCHEMES it fell away like a Paul Finebaum tear drop.
The point is...there is no overwhelming data anywhere that points to the SEC not being the top conference overall. If there is...please tell me, because then I clearly have much to learn, but I don't think there's much. Sure, FSU beat Auburn last year, and TCU kept it close with LSU, and Oklahoma routed Alabama, but if we're looking at the big picture for the past decade or so, it's been the SEC who's been most successful.
Just here to say the SEC is clearly better. It's all cyclical, teams are bad, teams are good, but the SEC has the most quality programs meaning they always have a handful of teams that are up. Believe it or not Tennessee will be good again sooner than later. There are good teams in every conference. SEC is the deepest.
The SEC is a great conference, no doubt. The narrative that spread "pee pee" offenses wouldn't work there has been torched, though. Absolutely torched.
There were defintely data points which contradicted this. 2013 Sagarin conference power ratings: 2012 2011 2010 Are these overwhelming data points? Nope. Does the SEC still come out with the highest composite ranking? Sure. Is the SEC clearly the best, year-in and year-out? Definitely not. In fact it has been the clear-cut best, by this metric, in only 1 or 2 of teh last 4 years, using this metric. And ironically, the one year that they were the clear-cut best, they had to import 2 non-SEC teams to do it. Do they contradict the prevailing narrative since 2000 or so of overwhelming, inescapable SEC dominance, every single year? Certianly - though I should note, if you go back and do the math from 2006 to 2010, SEC finishes on top every single year, back then, the narrative actually made some sense. However, if you go back to the early-mid 2000's, they're finishing 4th or 5th a number of years.
Spead SEC pee-pee offenses are fine when you have the best player in the nation, like Newton, Manziel or Tebow. TAMU still hasn't done anything in the SEC yet. Looks like they work though. Sure.
So, I'm not too excited about Ash at QB. Do Swoopes or Heard have a chance at being a big time QB? I think both these guys are supposed to be duel-threat QB's. Does Charlie Strong have experience developing this type of QB?
Except they regularly prove it in non-conference games too. While the conference plays a lot of terrible non-conference teams, they also play some of the best and regularly win them. As noted elsewhere around here, they LSU and Alabama routinely play great ranked non-conference opponents and win. Florida and SC play some very good ones annually in FSU and Clemson. Etc. There will always be datapoints that show "SEC is not perfect" - because they aren't. All teams and all conferences have weaknesses and can be beaten. But if anyone can make a remotely compelling case of another conference that has been better than the SEC over the last 7 or 8 years, I'd love to see it.
And this is accounted for in, and really forms the basis underlying the power rankings data - the same data which shows that the narrative of SEC's dominance is overblown by its proprietors.
Are they the top conference in terms of composite over the last 15 years or so? Sure. Are they the top conference EVERY SINGLE YEAR? No, and they are not really even close. Really, in a given year it's about equally likely that they are in fact not the top conference. It's like saying the Spurs are the team of the last decade plus; that doesn't mean tehy're the best team every single year.
Sure - if you decide that one particular computer system and its methodology is ultimate arbiter of who's best. But like any other ranking system, it has its quirks that distort rankings (I-AA teams, etc). And, of course, a conference rating system includes all the members of a conference - whereas I don't think most people care if the last place team in one conference is better than the last place team in another conference. When comparing the B12 to the SEC, no one cares if Kansas is better than Kentucky. People think of the top portion of the conferences against each other.
Oh of course. That wasn't what I intended to say. I was speaking strictly in terms of the big picture last decade or so. If that was misconstrued, my apologies.
Yes, I think Heard will be good down the road. Swoopes was not great in camp, and he has struggled to improve under both Mack Brown and Strong. Heard, on the other hand, just needs more time to learn the system and get some reps. UT does not need Ash to be great; he just needs to be good enough to keep a balanced offense going.
It is hard to argue that the SEC is not the best conference in college football after taking a look at these stats. This is a look at how the SEC performed in the 2014 NFL Draft: The SEC had 49 players selected, most among the conferences. It was the eighth year in a row the SEC had the most draftees. Every SEC school had at least one player selected, led by LSU with nine. That was the most of any school. There were 11 first-rounders, most among the conferences. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap20...-nfl-draft-how-conference-fared-among-power-5
