Top Conference: The SEC?

I recall my rugby days at Southern Oregon University (formerly known as Southern Oregon State College, when I attended), when I felt that our little club of about 20 men could take on or compete with anybody. The games we played at home were dominated by us with our massive Samoans in the scrum and our head-strong white guys flanking out as the backs who could run north/south pretty well. My first game, our coaches words echoing in my head "follow the ball", helped me communicate to a co-captain who was ahead of everyone but the three defenders who he was dragging with him to toss the ball to the outside, so when he turned to back his way into the defenders, I was right there for relief and snagging the perfect toss, I ran the remaining 15 yards or so to score my first "try". Yes, I "Zulued" that day. What an awesome feeling! One game, I actually scored twice, the first was on a 70 yard bolt down the sideline - and I was the rookie. We traveled to Eugene, Oregon to play their 'A' squad, for they had three separate squads at the University of Oregon. The 'B' and 'C' squads were equivalent to JV and freshman squads, I suppose. We barely lost to the Ducks by 3 points. We were just a little club, they were a huge program with 3 squads! We nearly took them with a limited traveling team that had to fork over money from their own pockets for the trip. We had the best team around. We beat Bend and OIT, Reed College and many others. As rugby goes, there is always the celebrations afterward that last late into the night that includes both teams. The sportsmanship between the two teams was like it is when I see two men bow at and hug each other after a brutal MMA match. There is respect and love of the sport that binds the two teams or individuals together. I love rugby! The Southern Oregon Fighting Cocks were the toughest team to beat with the reputation to prove it.

My feelings about my old rugby team in the early '90's reminds me of a recent article written in the October 19, 2009, issue of Sports Illustrated, by John Ed Bradley, speaking of his team that he played for in the late '70's and the conference that it participates in now. Mr. Bradley celebrates the recent accomplishments of his alma mater, LSU, and looks back at his playing days with tender fondness. He is definitely proud to be a Bengal Tiger who currently resides in Louisiana to this day. He's still tucked into the heart of the SEC, who Mr. Bradley boldly claims to be the best conference top to bottom with depth all over. That's great and gives me some warm fuzzies and all; however, I don't see any respect of other teams portrayed in this article that would show any sportsmanship and admit to the love of the game; even as the SI cover suggests, "SEC Football: Nobody Does It Better, The Nation's Toughest Conference". So, when my buddy, Shannon, handed me this Tim Tebow clad SI, he knew from his Florida State devotion that this would cause a rise in my Pac-10-minded ideals. He was absolutely correct in his assumptions and caused me to write this blog the very next day.

I think the mentality of the SEC and its players and its fans is all summed up by the words of Roy Kramer, who was the SEC commissioner for 12 years before retiring in 2002, when he was quoted in this article, "... SEC schools have had an 'us against the nation' attitude since 1926". This shows a huge flaw in the SEC who claims to love football more than anything else in life, growing up knowing the head coaches of the universities better than the political leaders of their particular states. They seem to be saying that it is the SEC way or no way at all. The fans and media have a tendency to slip into that skid and can't find their way out of the irrational thinking of pure dominance of the "best" conference in the nation. I think that true fans of the game would show respect toward other programs that may settle in different parts of the country, including teams on the west side of the Mississippi River. Yes, there is life existing and going on in these parts of the woods. To show true sportsmanship you must be able to see the big picture and not have your face in the magnifying lens all year long.

I would agree that there are a lot of athletes that come out of the state of Florida, when Mississippi head coach speaks of the 335 average amount of young men signing on to Division I schools. I also think there are a lot of talented young men coming from the state of Texas, as well. I have heard from one of the coaches at UTEP when he went on the recruiting trail that there was so much talent in particular areas of Texas that it was difficult to focus in on just individual players. He told me that the speed on the East side of the state; however, really had top notch speed in comparison to the West side of the state. With all the talent in Texas, it would seem easy to get a decent team built up, but for teams like UTEP, it is actually very difficult with so many other bigger schools vying for the same kids. Texas is the hot bed of talent snatchers that gets more early commitments than any other program out there. Then you have other schools like Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Houston, Rice, and then UTEP. This doesn't include the talons that swoop in from Oklahoma and Louisiana State. Another state that has a decent talent pool is California. There are only 4 major colleges in the state to choose from with all that talent, so many of them are swept away to distant schools.

A couple years ago, I calculated the amount of all the 3, 4, and 5-star athletes, according to Scouts.com, and put them with their perspective conferences. It showed that the SEC, as a whole, dominates the recruiting of prep super stars every year. The next best conference was around half of the amount of highly touted talent that fed into the SEC. That is incredible! The SEC does an amazing job at recruiting, as a conference whole. With that said, I would like to see the SEC schools prove their talent level with other teams than just their own. How selfish to play 4 games that you know don't have a chance at scoring against your first team defense, let alone winning the game (with few exceptions a year)! I would love to see Houston Nutt do exactly what he was quoted in this article by saying, "I watch the other conferences all the time and I think, Boy, I'd like to play them." Perfect! Schedule a game with Oklahoma or Texas or Texas Tech. Travel up north, for once, and play in the cold against Penn State or Michigan or Ohio State. Visit the Pacific Ocean side of the country, for once, and play Oregon or Oregon State or USC or California or even a Boise State or Utah. I challenge you, Coach Nutt, to make it happen. Show off your coaching skills and trickery skills and huge talent-laden team that draws from the "best" conference in the nation. Prove it to America! Put your money where your mouth is! I guarantee, that if you feel a little frightened of flying such a distance, that ANY Pac-10 team would be delighted to travel to Oxford to play the Rebels there first - even the basement-ridden Washington State - that should be an easy win for you. Wait! Don't let me limit my challenge to Coach Nutt, but to the rest of the coaches in the SEC. I tip my hat to Georgia for taking on a Pac-10 foe. I tip my hat to Tennessee, too. Even though those two games were at home for the SEC, the Pac-10 did come off with one win, and nearly a second. I even tip my hat, slightly, to LSU for actually making the trip to the Pacific Northwest to play the Pac-10 team with the longest losing streak of 14 games. I'm sure that when the game was actually scheduled, Washington was still winning 3-5 games a season, so good job LSU (slight sarcasm there). Les Miles seems to avoid the better teams of the other conferences for some reason. I'm confused how that consistently happens. Weird! With all the talent that LSU and Florida and Alabama and Auburn and Tennessee and Georgia bring in each year, there should be no fear whatsoever playing elite teams of other conferences. Those teams should be so bold to the nation and deliberately play tough games each and every week. Why not? They have the talent. They have the depth. They have the money. They have the stadium capacity. They have everything. Do it! Or are there underlying issues to suggest that maybe the "best" conference is just hype to justify the over-rated rankings each week. Which is it? Don't just make claims without actually backing it up on the field. When the naive tight end for LSU, Richard Dickson, says, "Your USCs, your Ohio States, sure, they're all great teams, but as far as a league, I don't think you can compete with the guys we have to go against each week." Really? Does he know anything about USC? What is said from LSU Belles? "The Pac-10? Isn't that a convenience store out on Highland Road?" When was the last time you, Mr. Dickson, have played "your USCs? Or an actual legitimate team from another conference since your win over Ohio State? Hmm. You may be thinking hard for a long time, buddy. It just doesn't happen. Play USC someday! I know Pete Carroll would love it! USC doesn't back down from heavy competition. Look at their opponents over the last 10 years. Notre Dame every year is a far cry from the annual Tulane hiccup you have each year. LSU doesn't even play the whole conference every year like USC does. Sure, USC gets its conference "bye" week by playing WSU, but LSU gets theirs with Vanderbilt who went to their first bowl game last year since 1982. At least WSU had 3 consecutive 10 win seasons within the last decade or so. When has Vandy ever done that? Or Kentucky? Or Mississippi State? Or Ole Miss? Don't just talk about it! I want to see it on the field! You can make all the claims in the world you want, but until I see you SEC coaches going after the big teams of other conferences and dominating them, I'm not going to be a believer - especially when the Pac-10 has a winning record over the SEC since the year 2000. These games are NOT against the easy shoe-ins for a win against opponents like Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Mississippi State, etc. The most recent wins are against Arkansas, Tennessee, and Auburn. I understand that maybe a hand full of people will actually read this, but I stand by my challenge to all the SEC coaches to step up and show off all their talent pool of young, strong, fast football players. Oregon would be a great team to go up against now with their very average 3-star athletes that have no speed like that of any SEC school, who took it to USC recently (sorry, some more sarcasm - I can't help it).

There is one thing I'm trying to figure out this season. There is this game in Knoxville that was played earlier in the season against UCLA. Well, UCLA started off with a easy opponent in San Diego State and then traveled to Knoxville to beat Tennessee two years straight and then played Kansas State (who is now atop the Big XII North). Since those three (actually two) impressive wins, UCLA has yet to win a Pac-10 game and hasn't even played USC yet. What's that say about the Pac-10? Well, let's look at the other side. Tennessee started off with a scrimmage against Western Kentucky and then lost to UCLA by 4, then a week later, lost by 10 to the #1 team in the nation, Florida. Beat an Ohio team, then lost to Auburn (shouldn't have) by 4. Then the Vols beat up Georgia by a whole bunch and lost by 2 to the #2 team in the nation, Alabama (only because the last minute field goal attempt was blocked by Alabama). Their Halloween showdown proved a dominant performance over the #22 ranked South Carolina. What's that say about the SEC? Let me think aloud for a moment when I say that UCLA was starting a freshman QB for his second game as a starter in Knoxville, who seats over 100,000 people and came off a win over an SEC school that started a veteran senior QB... hmmm... now I'm thinking to myself - maybe you might put the same 2+2 together. The answer I get is maybe John Ed Bradley of the LSU squad of several years ago may be off a bit in his assumption that the SEC is the "nation's toughest conference" by seeing how the season is getting played out. So, the question remains, which conference has more quality teams from top to bottom? Of the six major conferences, there are points to make with each conference; however, the major media will always say that the SEC is the best, but I think the facts and head-to-head statistics should have a lot more to say about it - especially when the SEC has a winning record against all the major conferences since 2000 except for the Pac-10. I feel that this is the most impressive fact that people like, Mr. Bradley will not fess up to and show good sportsmanship to recongnize all the facts before stating how inferior all other conferences are.

So, I enjoyed the article in Sports Illustrated by Mr. Bradley, but I don't think he loves the game outside of Louisiana. True fans follow more than one team or one conference because they respect the other programs and they just love the game. This is what I want to hear from someone devoted to the Southeast.

Ole Miss Pulls a So Cal

I just have one question: "Was Ole Miss really a #4 team?" I can't believe they started out at #10! Really?! I suspect that it's because they are a part of the SEC and the media wants so badly to have all twelve teams "appear" to be so great, that they can finally determine that the SEC is finally the clear top conference in the world... oops, I mean, nation. Well, from my standpoint, there will always be an arguement with that.

The Rebels played a good bowl game to end their season last year under first-year coach Houston Nutt; however, does that really warrant a #10 pre-season ranking? Hmmm. That's also like my question whether a top 5 pre-season ranking was way too high for a USC team that brought back only 3 starters on defense and a brand new quarterback. Top 20? Yes. Top 5? What are you talking about? Even the hard core Trojans fan that I am, I knew that it was way too generous; as well as the Rebels squad. At least USC was able to knock out another ranked opponent in Columbus, OH, before they lost a conference matchup against nearly a third of their old coaches up in Seattle, WA. Ole Miss, on the other hand, handed Memphis a whoopin' to move up a bit, then a bye week to hang tight for a week, and then an onslaught of points against the super power (sarcasm intended here) of Southeastern Louisiana. Back to my initial question, whether that is enough to warrant a #4 ranking in the entire United States of America. I have to be concerned about the welfare of division I football with the current voters that I have to suffer with. In the last couple years, the media has tried so hard to find the next great SEC team to raise them up high in the air and show the country how awesome they are (until they actually play a real team or two or six). First it was Vanderbilt getting all the way to #13 or something. They weren't even bowl eligible yet and a team that hasn't gone anywhere in the post season since 1982, had a ranking in the top 15. Really? Who are they playing in their first five games? Well, we know that they are desperate for wins (you would be too with the accrual of losses they get each year), so they are definitely going to use those four non-conference matchups as "gimmes". Any smart AD at Vanderbilt would. So, they look sharp against these four "gimmes" and then play inspired ball against another lowly team from the SEC and actually start 5-0. With a #13 pinned on their shoulder pads, they must have been put on the cover of SI or something because they lost to the other bottom feeder of the SEC, Mississippi State, the very next week (which I predicted, by the way). Anyone with any history of college football in their back pocket would have seen that a mile away. Just like the loss that Ole Miss suffered tonight in the hands of South Carolina, who played horribly on offense in the 4th quarter.

So, the Rebels lost the first conference game they played as a #4 team. Now, I'm sure the South Eastern fans will look at this like the conference is so packed with nutty goodness that the loss proves how deep of a conference it is, because Ole Miss will dominate all of their non-conference opponents. A warning right now to those two other football powers, UAB and Northern Arizona; the Rebels will treat you like a red-headed step-child (oh, sarcasm about the "football powers" was again intended). How far will Ole Miss fall? Will they fall like USC did with a drop of nine spots, or will they go the BYU route and drop closer to twelve? No one can be certain. A little will be determined by how many other top 20 teams lose over the weekend, but I suspect that there were high hopes from the beginning and they are in the SEC and lost to another SEC opponent that they will drop only 7 or 8 spots. Who knows? I guess we'll see in a few days when the voters have filled out their ballots Sunday night. I hope they actually watch some football this weekend and get some accurate information before they vote this weekend. I'm getting really concerned with things look based on these votes getting through each week. I would really like to see the proper teams in the top 15 spots in the AP poll.