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Even though I don’t like Urban Meyer, he just did the SEC a huge favor. Everyone hates it when SEC elitists, such as myself, proclaim that other conferences are bush league compared to the grueling schedules of the deep south. Going into the National Championship, the Big X had a case against the SEC. An unranked Penn State defeated the Volunteers of Tennessee (I told you Fulmer’s pact with Satan was void for the postseason) and Wisconsin had narrowly vanquished the Razorbacks of Arkansas, giving the Big X a 2-0 postseason record over the SEC going into the final bowl game of the season. For a moment, I bought into all the smack that the Big X was spitting. How can the SEC justify losing to the Big X like this? Then I remembered the SEC handicap factor.
The SEC is so good that it is forced to play the better teams
of each conference. For instance, Kentucky is the #7 SEC team, yet they can’t
play the #7 team of any other conference because they are either bowl ineligible
or the game would be a blowout. So they have them play a higher ranked team
in another conference, #5/6 Clemson from the
ACC. Each and every one of the SEC games were played with some sort of handicap,
with the exception of Auburn, LSU, and Florida (all wins, two were blowout
victories for the SEC).
1) Florida vs. Ohio State (Big X #1) W
2) LSU vs. Notre Dame (Independent ‘I get the benefit of the doubt’
#1) W
3) Auburn vs. Nebraska (Big XII #3) W
4) Arkansas vs. Wisconsin (Big X #3) L
5) Tennessee vs. Penn State (Big X #4) L
6) Georgia vs. Virginia Tech (ACC #3) W
7) Kentucky vs. Clemson (ACC #5/6) W
8) South Carolina vs. Houston (CUSA #1) W
9) Alabama vs. Oklahoma State (Big XII #8) L
The SEC took out epic teams like Ohio State, Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Virginia Tech. SEC fans have never been more right than now when saying “We are the best… by far.” SEC teams make up about a 4th of the final AP rankings with 6 teams, 3 are in the top 10. No one can beat the SEC straight up, and need to spend one of their top 3 teams to match up with any of our bowl teams (save Alabama). You can’t just look at a conferences bowl record to determine how great they are, you have to look at their opponents. As far as records go, the Big East is barely behind the SEC in greatness with a 5-0 bowl record. That must mean that the Big East is a powerhouse conference right? Look at who they played:
1) Louisville vs. #18 Wake Forest
2) West Virginia vs. Georgia Tech
3) Rutgers vs. Kansas State
4) South Florida vs. East Carolina
5) Cincinnati vs. Western Michigan
The Big East was able to beat one ranked opponent this postseason, but bears all the triumph of putting in one of the most dominating postseason performances of any conferences. Don’t be blinded by the numbers alone.
So Florida goes in the drastic underdog against Ohio State, where people will determine whether or not Florida belongs there at all, and Florida goes forth to put in their first non-sloppy game of the season, and it was frightening how dominant they were. Even though I hate the fact that Urban Meyer just waltzed into the SEC and immediately won a National Championship, he did the SEC a huge favor. I think that the SEC champion will be given the benefit of the doubt for the next few seasons, seeing how a 1-loss SEC team is miles ahead of an undefeated team in any other conference. Thank you Urban Meyer.
The most exciting part of the postseason was Boise State vs. Oklahoma, where the Blue and Orange Broncos showed that heart and creativity can overcome the greatest of odds, giving Boise State an undefeated season. Good for them. But it upsets me, an SEC elitist, when people start talking about how Boise State should have a shot at the title now. There are still about 9 more teams that have a more impressive resume than Boise State, despite them being undefeated. Boise State beat one ranked opponent all season, Oklahoma. And they aren’t called “Choke-lahoma” for nothing, They find ways to lose. Although it’s great to see a team like Boise State do great, and they delivered one of the greatest games of the century, talk of national champions is a bit much.
As far as Auburn goes, we rock. But I’m not one of those people that say that Auburn should get some sort of recognition for being the only team to defeat Florida this season. Every time we boast that we beat Florida, we are opening ourselves for a comeback about how we blew it (big time) against Georgia, who blew it against Vandy, who blew it against Alabama. And you know how Bammers are, if you tell them this line of logic, they’ll tag another National Championship onto their resume before anyone can do anything about it.
All in all this was a good season. We finished the season 10-2, which is never bad (calling this an 11 win season is a bit overkill, considering we just tagged another cupcake onto our new 12 game regular season), but was still short of our preseason expectations. Our offense was probably about as slow as it has been in the past 6 years, and our defense bends a bit more than it usually does, but hardly broke. Despite playing sloppier games, poorer defense, and less consistent offense, Auburn came out with only 2 losses in 13 games. I credit our excellent record to our ability to take advantage of opportunities. I don’t have the numbers, and don’t really care to look for them, but I bet that Auburn has one of the highest amounts of points off of turnovers in the league. If you screw up just slightly against Auburn this season, you would pay dearly for it. Turnovers are the reason we were able to beat Florida, South Carolina, Alabama and Nebraska.
Don’t worry though, we have one of our best recruiting classes in the last decade this year, including a mobile five-star quarterback Kodi Burns, two of the best offensive linemen in the nation Ryan Pugh and Chaz Ramsey, as well as super-athlete Linebacker Eltoro Freeman. And everyone knows that Auburn can make iron out of clay when it comes to making players, there’s no telling how good these recruits are going to be when Tuberville and company are done shaping them.
WAR EAGLE!
Ryan can
be contacted at ryan@theauburner.com
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