SEC West Embarrassed Itself in Bowl Games
We heard all the talk that the SEC West was the deepest division in college football. During the regular season, the numbers suggested that.
After all, everybody in the division had a winning record, and six of the teams in the division were in the Top 10 at one point. They went undefeated out of conference and only had three losses total against the SEC East. Who would say that it wasn’t the deepest?
Well, while it was indeed deep, it certainly didn’t show in bowl games. The only two SEC West teams to win, Texas A&M and Arkansas, are former Southwest Conference members.
Everybody else lost after Alabama’s loss to Ohio State Thursday night in the Sugar Bowl. Remember all the talk about the need for multiple SEC teams in the College Football Playoff?
How does that sound now?
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This is why there has to be a Democratic process in college football. That’s not an argument for whether or not the national champion should be decided by a Plus-One, simply two teams playing for it, the current College Football Playoff format, or something else.
Whatever system is used, whether or not a team won its conference and has played another team has to be taken into account.
It is simply not fair otherwise. It wasn’t fair when Alabama got the rematch with LSU in 2011, and it would not have been fair if Michigan got the rematch with Ohio State in 2006 (luckily, that didn’t happen).
Eye test can’t be the determining factor when selecting the four best teams because the eye test can often fail you.
Luckily, the Selection Committee got the four teams right this year because they based it on body of work, not so much the eye test. But it should at least serve as proof that you should not have multiple teams from a conference in the playoff unless there are extreme circumstances.
Back to the SEC West, it’s team has to make a case for not being worse than the SEC East at this point. This was pathetic in the bowl season. It started with LSU blowing a game to Notre Dame, then Ole Miss and Mississippi State got beat soundly in their New Year’s Six bowl games, and on New Year’s Day Auburn losing to Wisconsin before Alabama losing Ohio State.
What this proved is what Tim Tebow said.
It’s not that the SEC is now a terrible conference. Heck, it could still be the best conference. But there is simply a lot of parity in college football. Lots of teams are very good, and we have moved from about 10 schools a year thinking about a national title to 40 schools a year thinking about it.
When we did our Top 25 rankings throughout the year, we hyped up the SEC West but not simply because the teams played in that division. Every RPI metric showed teams like Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Alabama, and Auburn at times belonging in the Top 10 and even Top 5.
Luckily, though, as usual, everything played out, which made it easy to sort out the playoff teams.
And what was proven in bowl games is that there is only going to be more parity by the year in college football as the money flows in.
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