Mr. Conventional Wisdom, as we all know, bows to no man in his love and admiration for all things SEC. And, yes, he’s a little stung right now by his 12-0 prediction for the SEC’s bowl season. So you can roll your eyes a bit as he’s working the “they’ll be back, baby!” angle hard already.
But he’s not quite as off the mark as the good folks at Eleven Warriors make him sound. Listening to the bowl chatter yesterday, it’s clear that plenty of ESPN’s talking heads had no problem pimping the SEC’s admittedly bad New Year’s Day as a sign of serious decline. Since it’s ESPN, it’s pretty clear why that was so: it’s good for business.
Expect it to gain traction in the offseason. The P5 conferences have every reason in the world to work the refs as long as there are more conferences than playoff slots and if ESPN is willing to do some of the heavy lifting, I doubt anyone will object.
Expect Nick Saban to have time for this shit, though.
Get The Picture 
The SEC East is what? 4-0 pending the result of the Florida game today? The West is 2-5. Pretty funny considering all of that “greatest division evah” talk mid-season.
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The East hasn’t played nearly as tough a slate as the West has in the bowl season.
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But each team has played an opponent with a similar ranking to their own. The teams from the East have met that challenge while the teams from the West (playing in more prestigious games) have not. I have never cared much for the East vs. West argument because the “dominance” is cyclical, but I got tired of it this year. The West teams’ fan bases – I live in Memphis – dished it out every chance they got. Time to eat some crow.
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FU won its bowl game. The SEC East is 5-0 this bowl season. Georgia was 2-0 against its 2 SEC West opponents this season. So was Mizzou. This SEC East is weak BS comes from weak UK and Vandy. Plus UT and FU not being up to snuff. When Missy State and Ole Piss fall back to earth all will be right with the world again. Hopefully next year.
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Did you feel that way about Louisville before we played them?
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That Louisville was on a lower tier than Ohio State or TCU, for instance?
I think you could say that.
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That much is obvious, but considering we were supposed to be horse manure we at least beat the other conference’s horse manure, more than can be said of elite western brethren. And Georgia was 2-0 against the mighty west so they deserve some dawgrading.
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The west’s strength was built on the premise that ole miss beat bama and miss state beat ole miss. Other than that, they did jack shit this season.
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Miss State beat Ole Miss?
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I like it! Give them something to talk about! When the SEC triumphs in 2015….they will be eating crow. 🐧🎈
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Gotta love those SEC haters! Give them a month to get ready during bowl season where they win every now and again and they howl louder than Tarzan ever could. They should tell their AD to schedule 3 or 4 of those sorry sec schools. Tell you what jriding they’ll walk over here but I’ll bet they limp back!!
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Yes, wounded with their tails between their legs. 🐒🎈
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ESPN has been defensive all season about all the “SEC bias” whining to the point of groveling. So the SEC had a bad bowl year, so what? What other conference is as strong? The ACC champ got obliterated, the Big 12 co-champ got beat by a Big 10 team, and Oregon is the only PAC 12 team that has looked dominant. All this “decline” talk is among fans of other conference teams and idiots like Danny Kanell.
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Does anyone have a Kanell reaction to the complete implosion of his beloved Noles? I wonder if it went something like this, “Well, at least they did not lose to an SEC team.”
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He basically said that he thought Oregon would win, but he thought it would be closer.
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Hehe, man I wish I could have seen his face.
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I agree. As someone who actively roots against all the other SEC teams barring match ups where an SEC win would help Georgia or be the lesser of two evils, it would suit me if the SEC went 1-11 this or any other bowl season . If the one win was Georgia.
With that said I doubt if the games between Auburn and Alabama were played multiple times its unlikely that the result would be the same. But that could be said about just about any game and the result is the result. I’m happy that Ole Miss and Mississippi State lost just because as a long time SEC observer and Georgia fan I am always very dubious as to the quality of those two along with Arkansas.
If the SEC begins next season without a team in the top 5 I will be shocked. If they end without a team in the CFP I’ll be even more suprise . Hopefully it will be us!
Go Dawgs!
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Arkansas in ’15 is now the new flavor du jour (owing I assume to its 2-6 conference record) and demolition of 6-6 Tejas. Also, the genius marketers at The Network were triumphantly tabbing the Vols as a “contender for the East” next season. This must be a result of UT’s 3-5 record and hammer-job of 7-5 Iowa.
You know Alabama is your Top 5 entry, because it has the 4-hr. TV ad program on The Network. Bama may be kept teetering just outside the four playoff teams (at #5) to drive viewership.
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I’m not happy Miss State lost, because we were subjected to shartbrains like that Bob Smith asshole.
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Well one thing the SEC was missing this year was bona fide stars at the elite positions of running back and quarterback. I mean our biggest star was a wide receiver. The quarterbacks were young guys or career backups, save Nick Marshall who is a one trick pony. Gurley getting busted and then injured didn’t help. While we know the game is won in the trenches, and there may have been some drop off there as well, perception is still driven by the skill positions. Something else we were missing is that one elite team. Bama was not elite this year. But when an SEC program can finish 5th in the conference recruiting standings, and still be 8th in the nation, the SEC is not going away anytime soon.
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The Trenches. That’s what I’m fired up about next year. Our OL is going to stomp some mudholes in some defenses next year and those stud RB’s are going to run wild. Man, if I were a top college OC, I would be salivating to step in at UGA.
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I hope it turns out this way Gurkha, but just having an experienced OL back doesn’t equate to being dominant. I am optimistic we will be as good, probably better, next year along the OL but we were not consistently able to move the ball against stout defensive fronts this season (Mizzou, FU, etc.) so we will have to get stronger before next season to fully capitalize on the RBs we have in short yardage situations. OL will not be a weakness in 2015, but getting improved play out of those guys may be the key to moving from ten wins to 13 or 14. Also, we were very fortunate in the injury area this past season, we need to get deeper and build some more quality depth for the following year. I am encouraged from what I hear about Wynn but not sure what else is on the horizon.
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Mac, I agree with all that you said. You are right about the OL not being consistent, but they showed the potential to be a very good if not elite unit. A great OL can make up for a lot of sins. That OSU Bama game was a great example. You had a 3rd string QB going up against one of the best defensive minds in the country, with a defense full of 4 and 5 star players. I think Bama’s def was overrated, but it was still very good. Yet OSU’s OL was consistently punching holes in that D and moving the ball at will. I know we are not at OSU’s level, but I think we can be. Is it too early to work myself into an optimistic frenzy?
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Bama also had 2 D lineman go down with injury and had to put in a true fr and a redshirt fr. That’s where O went with the run all 2nd half. Urban did a great job of capitalizing on those injuries, as much as I hate to say anything good about him.
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Without the new postseason format, the national championship game would have been Alabama vs Florida State. I guess the expanded format isn’t as evil as some make it out to be.
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Good point
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The SEC West has been over rated. The best two teams in the SEC were Alabama and Georgia. I don’t think a good case can be made for a third team in the conference that was better at the end of the year than those two. We’ll never know, but I suspect Georgia would have beaten Alabama if they could have just managed getting into the SECCG…and we’re left to wonder what could have been. Alabama looked very ordinary against Ohio State, who looked very ordinary against Bama…I think Kiffen hurt the Tide’s consistency on offense. You can bet he’s in trouble if things aren’t better next year.
But look at what Ga did against the West and against MO.
I feel good about next year. The coaching situation is very good and improving.
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Yeah. But the evilness lies in Ohio St. They got in b/c of fan base size & Baylor got screwed. Chris Tucker was right – evil lurks…
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You’re harping on the wrong strings, what we learned was that the regular season provides basically no helpful data for figuring that out.
The bowl season’s data made that argument ridiculous — all of their big wins looked much better after bowl season (they crushed Wisconsin and MSU, and even Penn State won a bowl game). The entire top half of the Big XII lost sans TCU, who clearly should have had FSU’s spot.
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I thiink it was Jesse Palmer (I’ve watched so much football it runs together) who was saying that the SEC, considering itself the strongest conference, is more of a reference to the overall strength..bottom to top..more than a reference to always having the number one team. The success of the percieved mediocre East against the best of the rest is strong evidence that Plamer is finally right about something. Usually, the SEC is dominant at the top, but this year it’s the middle…a big middle… MOST years it’s the top and middle.
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Somebody may have already pointed this out but…
Georgia played eight bowl teams in the regular season, and the only one that lost was Auburn (in OT). Not bad.
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Don’t you know how it works around here? You’re only allowed to cherry-pick stats if they make us look bad. 😉
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I’m not Thomas Brown. 😉
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That’s how it works on TV. About the only mention I heard of Georgia’s season is that they were “clobbered by Florida”…Forget that the Dawgs beat the tar out of Au, Mo, Ark,..
Georgia really and truly is one of the best teams in college football…but it’s covered up because of why?
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Just check who is doing the broadcasting on the Mickey Mouse Network: an army of aOSU talkers backed up by a batallion of Florida people. I think it is as simple as that. Then on the SEC Network (an appendage of Mickey) Bama essentially has its own ad show four hours per day.
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Seems to me that these talking heads lean towards the negative when discussing practically every team in CF. Just like the news papers…who’s mantra is, if it bleeds it reads.
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