While SEC homers fret about the unthinkable possibility that the Best League From Top To BottomTM could be denied its rightful place in the It’s-A-War Invitational BCS National Championship Game because — y’know — its top teams keep losing games, Stewart Mandel offers a much-needed reality check that will be promptly ignored by everyone who needs to hear it:
More plausible [than Auburn or LSU running the table] is the possibility that someone — Alabama, South Carolina, Auburn — will go into the SEC Championship Game with a chance to finish 12-1, which in almost any year would assure it a spot in the Even Bigger Game — and a shot at the league’s fifth straight national championship.
Which brings us to that second question: Does this year’s SEC deserve the benefit of the doubt?
Only the most staunch SEC apologist (and there are millions of them) would argue that the league isn’t “down” this year. In recent years one could legitimately argue that the conference’s eighth- or ninth-place team would finish third in a league like the Big Ten, but this year the SEC sports at least five legitimately mediocre-to-bad teams (Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Ole Miss). The Pac-10, which has seven teams ranked in the top 40 of CollegeBCS.com’s simulated BCS standings, is a deeper league.
But the SEC does have five teams (Auburn, Alabama, LSU, South Carolina and Arkansas) ranked in the top 12 of the latest AP poll, and while some may slip a little, it’s a good bet all five will stay in or around the top 20 all year. Come December, voters won’t be analyzing “depth” — they’ll be drooling over the fact that whichever team hoists the trophy in Atlanta will have beaten five ranked teams.
If the Pac-10, Big Ten and Big 12 produce two undefeated champions between them, the SEC’s BCS reign will end. Undefeated TCU or Utah would likely get the nod, too. (Boise State should, but probably wouldn’t.)
I agree with Mandel that, right or wrong, Boise would almost certainly be leapfrogged by a 1-loss SEC champ, barring a scenario where that champ has a late loss — say Auburn loses to Alabama, but still wins the SEC West crown (because Bama first loses again to somebody else) and then beats a 2-loss SEC East champ for the conference title. I’m not sure if I agree with Mandel that TCU or Utah wouldn’t be leapfrogged, but I agree that they probably have a better chance than Boise… if Boise has a loss by then (presumably to Nevada, or perhaps Hawaii). If Boise remains unbeaten, I don’t think TCU jumps ’em, primarily because of last year’s Fiesta Bowl. But if Boise were out of the picture, the Frogs would probably have a better title shot vis a vis a 1-loss SEC team (or other major-conference champ) than the Broncos do. As for Utah… well, the Utes, who don’t have the albatross of last year’s Fiesta Bowl hanging around their necks, might jump Boise, I suppose, if they can beat Air Force, TCU and Notre Dame in consecutive weeks October 30, November 6 and November 13. (The Irish may well be 6-3 and sniffing the Top 25 by the time the Utes come to town.) And then there’s Nevada: what if the Wolf Pack go unbeaten, toppling a perhaps #1 or #2 ranked Boise State on November 26? They’d almost certainly need across-the-board, 2007-style chaos, with 2-loss champs as far as the eye can see, to have any shot at the title game. But hey, you never know.
I’m too lazy to do verify this myself, but I feel like I’ve read at least one article every year for the past five years where the author has made some statement along the lines of, “Only the most staunch SEC apologist (and there are millions of them) would argue that the league isn’t “down” this year.” In fact, I’d love if Stewart Mandel or someone else could give me one year this past decade where the SEC’s “eighth- or ninth-place team would finish third in a league like the Big Ten”.
Every year, we seem to see the same recurring crescendo pattern: preseason hype for the SEC with multiple highly-ranked teams; mediocre performance midseason leads to doubts and criticism that the SEC is in fact the best league; an SEC team gets into the BCS game and faces an overhyped Big Ten or Big 12 team and wins the MNC, while the other BCS bowl teams play roughly .500 against the other major conferences; and spring to fall camp, we hear endlessly of the SEC’s dominance yet again.
The arrogance of SEC fans is rivaled only by the arrogance of Big-10 fans. I have a number of friends who have said that a 2-loss Ohio State would be more deserving of a spot in the national title game than an undefeated Boise State. Pathetic.
Here’s a question for you, Brendan – how quickly do you think college FBS would adopt a playoff if Oklahoma and Oregon are to lose one or more times and Boise State ends up playing TCU in the national title game? If not a single BCS team is playing in the title game, would this finally sufficiently upset the powers that be? I think it might …