Yahoo: Why SEC Isn't As Great In Football As You Think
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 10:37 am
Interesting post with numbers.
http://www.thepostgame.com/commentary/2 ... on-sec-bcs
Is the SEC really the best conference in college football "top to bottom," as it's so often described? And if it is, why since the start of the BCS era in 1998 does the conference have overall losing records against the Pac-12 (11-12) and Big East (19-23) and superior but not dominating records against other major conferences? Might the nationwide perception of SEC superiority simply be part of a well-constructed ESPN business plan meant to protect and enhance the network’s $2.25 billion partnership with the SEC? As part of his admittedly left-coast-leaning inspection of myths and misconceptions about the South, author Chuck Thompson dug out the numbers and facts in devoting an entire chapter to Southern football amid critiques of religion, politics, education and racism in his new book Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession (Simon & Schuster). Here's an excerpt:
In his seminal work, The Burden of Southern History, historian C. Vann Woodward wrote: "The South has had its full share of illusions, fantasies, and pretensions, and it has continued to cling to some of them with an astonishing tenacity that defies explanation."
Few enduring southern delusions do more to illustrate Woodward's point than the region's storied devotion to college football and the myth of the superiority of the SEC, the twelve teams collectively regarded in the South -- and much of the rest of the country -- as whales to krill, The Beatles to Herman's Hermits, jackhammer sex with Mila Kunis to dry humping your junior prom date standing up in her parents' garage.
Claims to SEC superiority are based on a simple set of arguments, foremost of which is that of the 14 national championships awarded since the 1998 advent of the BCS system, eight have gone to teams from the SEC, including, remarkably, the last six in a row.
http://www.thepostgame.com/commentary/2 ... on-sec-bcs
Is the SEC really the best conference in college football "top to bottom," as it's so often described? And if it is, why since the start of the BCS era in 1998 does the conference have overall losing records against the Pac-12 (11-12) and Big East (19-23) and superior but not dominating records against other major conferences? Might the nationwide perception of SEC superiority simply be part of a well-constructed ESPN business plan meant to protect and enhance the network’s $2.25 billion partnership with the SEC? As part of his admittedly left-coast-leaning inspection of myths and misconceptions about the South, author Chuck Thompson dug out the numbers and facts in devoting an entire chapter to Southern football amid critiques of religion, politics, education and racism in his new book Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession (Simon & Schuster). Here's an excerpt:
In his seminal work, The Burden of Southern History, historian C. Vann Woodward wrote: "The South has had its full share of illusions, fantasies, and pretensions, and it has continued to cling to some of them with an astonishing tenacity that defies explanation."
Few enduring southern delusions do more to illustrate Woodward's point than the region's storied devotion to college football and the myth of the superiority of the SEC, the twelve teams collectively regarded in the South -- and much of the rest of the country -- as whales to krill, The Beatles to Herman's Hermits, jackhammer sex with Mila Kunis to dry humping your junior prom date standing up in her parents' garage.
Claims to SEC superiority are based on a simple set of arguments, foremost of which is that of the 14 national championships awarded since the 1998 advent of the BCS system, eight have gone to teams from the SEC, including, remarkably, the last six in a row.
