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SEC is not the clear-cut king

Kevin McCune

A few years ago, Nick Saban left the Miami Dolphins hanging high and dry for a bigger payday in Tuscaloosa. Say what you will about the man, but you cannot argue the fact that he did a great job of turning around the Crimson Tide program when he arrived. Saban's a tireless worker and recruiting and his arrival at Alabama along with a pair of embarrassing losses by Ohio State University (OSU) to South Eastern Conference (SEC) schools in national championship games helped to develop an SEC bias.

Unfortunately for college football fans, because as any SEC fan will tell you (their egos have really gotten big over these last few years), there's a difference between any run of the mill college football fan and an SEC fan (it's called encouraged delusion), the SEC bias' flame seems like it's going to take a lot longer to burn out than it did to spark.

When University of Florida and Louisiana State University (LSU) demolished the pride of the Big Ten OSU in consecutive national championships, the SEC had a perfect storm brewing, the likes in which George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg have never even seen.

Auburn was beginning its rebuilding years, but their 2004 undefeated campaign was still fresh in the country's recent memory. University of Tennessee's program had not yet been single handedly destroyed by Lane Kiffin. There was a ton of star power. The University of Florida Gators had Tim Tebow (who, according to SEC fans, is the best college football player who has ever lived). No one thought the University of Georgia Bulldogs would get out of the decade without a championship of their own with players like Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno. Arkansas had a trio of running backs that had NFL scouts drooling in Darren McFadden, Felix Jones and Peyton Hillis. The old ball coach, Steve Spurrier, was rebuilding South Carolina, and Nick Saban was getting the Tide rolling again. On top of all of that, it was a time period when conference bottom feeders University of Kentucky (UK) and Vanderbilt University started emerging and becoming more respectable, fueling the bias fever even more. UK won eight games in 2006 and 2007, and seven games in 2008 and 2009, while Vanderbilt went to a bowl game in 2008.

The truth, however, is that most of what led to the SEC bias has come to an end. It's no wonder Urban Meyer wanted to take the year off, with national title hopes out the window long ago it would appear Florida has fallen on hard times this year even though 4-3 in the conference is still good enough for first place. Seriously? A 4-3 conference record gets you first place in the SEC East … sounds pretty mediocre to me.

With conference records of 1-5, 1-5, 1-4, and 0-5 respectively, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, University of Mississippi and Tennessee would have trouble competing in any conference, let alone the big bad SEC … or is it the just plain bad SEC? At 5-5, the University of Georgia Bulldogs' bark has been way worse than their bite. The one-time innovators of the wild-hog (now known as the wild-cat) offense, University of Arkansas has redefined itself under Bobby Patrino (another NFL quitter like Saban), but now the team struggles to run the ball at all. The Mad Hatter, Les Miles, has consistently failed to bring the same talent to the LSU Bayou Bengals that his predecessor, Nick Saban did. Auburn University is lucky to have received Cam Newton because with that atrocious defense they have, ranked 50th in the nation according to cbssports.com, they would have trouble beating anybody without him. Then of course there's the prize of the SEC, those elephants.

At the beginning of the college football season, Alabama was thought to be the undisputed and unquestioned dominant team in college football. They had skilled players like Julio Jones, Trent Richardson and Mark Ingram. They had a quarterback in Greg McElroy who hadn't lost a game as a starter since middle school, and a defense with so much talent many argued it was nearly NFL caliber.

Then, South Carolina exposed the fact that the Tide is one-dimensional offensively. When the Game Cocks shutdown the running back duo of Ingram and Richardson and McElroy was actually forced to win a game, he couldn't come through. The youth of the defense was also exposed. Maybe Tim Hightower isn't quite better than Rolando McClain just yet, like everyone said he'd be.

Even after the two-touchdown defeat 35-21 loss to University of South Carolina, many people in the media said a one-loss Alabama team deserved to go to the national title ahead of an undefeated Boise State University or Texas Christian University (TCU), because their schedule in the "should be an NFL division" SEC was just so much more daunting. I wonder what they'll say this week about a two-loss Alabama team. Saturday, the Alabama Tide fell to an LSU team that has had some of the worst quarterback play in the nation this year. With no disrespect to him, Zac Dysert could potentially transfer to LSU, and after sitting out a year would have a legitimate shot at playing time.

What did TCU and Boise State University do? The Horned Frogs only beat the University of Utah, the number six team in the nation who came into the game undefeated, 47-7 (but then again their schedule's not tough enough). Boise meanwhile made easy work of a Hawaii team whose high-powered offense had put 36 up against University of Southern California, 49 against Fresno State University and dropped the University of Nevada 27-21. The Warriors could only muster seven points against the Broncos on the Smurf turf, as Boise won the game 42-7.

This season when you compare overall conference records, the SEC doesn't seem to be that dominant at all. The Big Ten is 64-37 (only 11 teams), the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is 60-48, the Big East is 37-29 (only eight teams), the Pacific-10 (PAC 10) is 51-39 (only 10 teams), the Big 12 is 69-41 and the SEC is 70-41.

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The Big Ten's winning percentage is 63 percent, the ACC's winning percentage is at 56 percent, the Big East's winning percentage is 56 percent, the PAC 10's winning percentage is at 57 percent, the Big 12's winning percentage is 63 percent and the SEC's winning percentage is at 63 percent. When you do the math, it's easy to see the Big Ten and Big 12 have the exact same winning percentage as the SEC this season.

The SEC bias is still alive and well though, but one has to argue maybe it should have never been here in the first place, maybe the media blew things way out of proportion in fueling this raging beast. In 2006, when OSU was blown out by Florida in the championship, how did other SEC schools fair? Alabama lost that year to Oklahoma State University in the Independence Bowl 34-31. Tennessee fell to Penn State University in the Outback Bowl 20-10. Arkansas lost to the University of Wisconsin in the Capital One Bowl 17-14.

What about 2007 when LSU had its way with the Buckeyes? Arkansas lost its second straight bowl game, this time to Missouri in the Cotton Bowl 38-7. Michigan beat the greatest college football player of all time as Florida fell to the Wolverines 41-35 in the Capital One Bowl.

In 2008, an underrated and undefeated Utah team that felt it was snubbed from the BCS Championship game squashed the so-called powerful Tide 31-17. Proving strength of schedule or not, SEC powers might have been a bit overrated. Who knows what the undefeated Utes could have done against a one-loss Florida team that won the national title that year but had struggled mightily to beat an Alabama team in the SEC championship that Utah handled so easily.

Keep on clamoring if you're an SEC fan, if trends continue and the SEC wild fires continue to rage, I wouldn't be surprised if in 20 years a five-loss SEC champion would be allowed into the national title game, on account of strength of schedule of course. I'm only kidding … right?