SEC continues to reign supreme
It’s an annual attempt, really.
Various media outlets hitch their wagons to the new up-and-coming power conference; the hip, emerging story. Conference-X proponents and SEC opponents spend the duration of the season, it seems, trying to convince the college football community that the SEC isn’t the premier conference in the game. That the gap between the SEC and others is mythical, something southerners contrive to sensationalize their product. Those who defend the flagship league are labeled tendentious and traditional, oblivious to the transformation engulfing college football.
The truth is that the landscape of college football is shifting. The game is progressing, maturing if you will, opening the door for novel modification and change. That said, not everything has been flipped on its’ end. If the upheaval sweeping through college football was a storm, consider the SEC an Ibis. We're pretty stubborn in the south.
With the conclusion of Monday’s BCS Championship Game, the 2007 postseason has officially come to a close.
The results?
1. SEC
2. Everyone else.
The league everyone loves to hate went a scintillating 7-2 in bowl games, a showing highlighted by a 38-24 thrashing of top-ranked Ohio State by SEC Champion LSU on college football’s biggest stage.
The victory gave the SEC its’ second consecutive championship and its’ second straight convincing victory over Ohio State in national title games. In the league’s other BCS showing, at-large bid Georgia defeated the nation’s only undefeated team by 31 points. The Bulldogs humbled the Hawaii Warriors, showing a speed and athleticism that overwhelmed the talented visitors from the Islands.
In two BCS games, which are supposed be a pairing of the best of the best in college football, the SEC won by a combined margin of 79-34. When you consider both Ohio State and Hawaii scored meaningless touchdowns against prevent defenses late in both games, the above discrepancy really doesn’t do justice.
In addition to the strong performances by LSU and Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Tennessee each won. One of the conference’s two losses, Arkansas falling to Missouri, came at the hands of a team that was ranked number one in the nation in early December and caught perhaps the biggest BCS snub in college football history.
Michigan, hail to these victors, defeated Florida in the Capital One Bowl on New Years' Day. The Wolverines had a tremendous gameplan, played very well and defeated the Gators in the final minutes of the game. The outing was the last game ever for storied UM coach Lloyd Carr.
The SEC is far from a perfect football conference, but many jump at the chance to dethrone the king. It seems there are those who anxiously wait on edge, hoping for the league to stub its' toe. Many love to play the overrated card, results on the field be damned. Maybe it's the 90,000-seat stadiums. Maybe it's the inimitable atmospheres and fan followings. Maybe it's the NFL pipeline, the championships or the high profile games. At least the SEC can pull up a chair; there's an empty seat next to the Patriots, Yankees, Duke basketball and Mitt Romney's hair at the table of envy.
In retrospect, don't forget that the LSU team that dismantled the top ranked team in the nation Monday night and crushed Orange Bowl participant Virginia Tech by over 40 points back in September couldn't make it through their conference schedule without two losses. The 2006 defending national champion Florida Gators, who throttled the then-undefeated Buckeyes last season, couldn't make it through their SEC slate unscathed and needed a blocked field goal in their regular season conference finale to avoid two league losses as well. Such is life in the SEC.
Monday night, the SEC became the first conference to win back-to-back BCS national championships. With victories by Georgia and LSU, the league is now 11-4 all-time in BCS bowl games. With seven wins this bowl season, the conference set a record for most bowl victories in a single season. The record that was broken? Six, by the SEC in 2006. The recent wave of success now gives the SEC 184 bowl wins, tops in the FBS.
The 7-2 postseason mark truly speaks volumes, especially when you consider many of the conference bowl tie-in's feature SEC schools playing against higher-seeded teams from other leagues. That often overlooked fact makes the record that much more impressive.
In year in which very little was very obvious, it's ironic that the season ended on such a traditional note. The more things change...the more they stay the same.
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