This is one of those random exercises I go through now and then out of sheer curiosity, so take it for what it’s worth, y’all. Georgia’s last losing season came in 2010, when it finished 6-7 after that embarrassing bowl game loss.
How many losing seasons have the other SEC East teams endured since the last time Georgia finished below .500? Welp, here you go:
- Florida: 2017 (4-7); 2013 (4-8)
- Kentucky: 2015 (5-7); 2014 (5-7); 2013 (2-10); 2012 (2-10); 2011 (5-7)
- Missouri: 2016 (4-8); 2015 (5-7); 2012 (5-7)
- South Carolina: 2016 (6-7); 2015 (3-9)
- Tennessee: 2018 (5-7); 2017 (4-8); 2013 (5-7); 2012 (5-7)
- Vanderbilt: 2018 (6-7); 2017 (5-7); 2016 (6-7); 2015 (4-8); 2014 (3-9)
That’s a lot of mediocrity this decade. The two things that stand out are South Carolina having the same number of truly crappy seasons as Florida and (I almost hate to admit this) how good a job James Franklin did at Vanderbilt.
Is the reason the East is thought by some to be swinging back against its Western counterpart due to the slight decline in the number of its teams that finished with losing records — only two last season, compared with four in 2015?
Beats me. Any thoughts?
Get The Picture 
Mark Stoops has done a pretty darn good job at Kentucky with 3 straight winning seasons. It’s doubtful that’s going to make it to 4.
Tooth Nation should be embarrassed by this.
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“Tooth Nation.” I LOL’d.
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Agree. Most folks feel Kentuck will struggle without Allen, Snell, etc., but Stoops has done a fairly good job of reloading over the past 5 years. He isn’t gonna get another 9 win season this year, but I can see 6 or 7 wins. Kentuck isn’t a threat to UGA, but they can pick off some wins against any of the other sec east teams.
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Regression to the mean? Those 4-7 seasons are just a few breaks from 7-5?
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I don’t think it is the historical W/L record of the East, believe it is the competitiveness of the games against one another. Last year showed improvement by the East. Also, the SECCG recently, and historically, has been a fight. The weakness has always been driven by the negative perception of Vandy and Kentucky (with some justification) and the more recent fall off of TN and FU.
Top to bottom, the West is stronger, imo, but the Top 3 in each produces good games most years. Bama’s recent surge, coupled with TN’s dramatic fall off has skewed the perception. LSU/FU and UGA/AU have both held up over time. I feel viewing the conference by divisions is a bad idea for the conference, the SEC is far and away the best overall conference, there will always be cyclical swings in power among teams, even Bama had their downtime. You want to see conferences with major imbalances look at the number of conference titles held by two teams in both the Big 14 and the Big 12. I think Michigan and ohio have around 100 titles between them.
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seccg has been won by the west with the exception being UGA, in that same time period…that speaks loudly
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I think you will be actually surprised with the W/L record between the two divisions. The Alabama run has distorted many viewpoints, record says something else. But I agree, the most recent games are all people seem to remember these days. If so, East over West last year baby, and the title game went down to the final play. Doesn’t mean the East is better, but using their logic…. As I said, I think the West is deeper, but feel the conference should speak of itself as one unit, and that shows SEC is best overall.
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I think it’s mainly a product of the East having a winning record against the West for the first time in about a decade.
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Agree with Biggus. It is much too small a sample size, but when you look at it, the East won 9-6 and three of those wins were by Bama. Ole Miss, Arkansas, Miss State and Auburn all got shut out by teams from the east. I absolutely think Kirby’s presence in the east has upgraded things…not to the level Saban did 12 years ago, but still pretty obvious.
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Saban elevated the West, maybe Smart is doing the same with the East. Seems logical to me. You keep getting enough of good players, good things eventually happen.
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Talking about Ewe Tee is to my ears what cowbell is to those of Christopher Walken.
We need more.
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The reason the East is rising is because the uf savoir has been brought home out of the west, so naturally the East should be better as it has the GCOOE now in the division. Plus the addition of Pruitt, Saban with less hair basically, at ut.
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The fight for 2nd place in the division looks to be pretty competitive. I won’t be surprised if it isn’t settled until the final week of the season. There’s no clear #2.
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Yeah, but several of them have that smell.
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So according to uf fans, who is going to be battling with UGA for second?
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I think UGA has only had 5 losing seasons since 1964. I wonder how many Power 5 schools can beat that?
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I was surprised when I saw that Tenn has had a losing season 8 out of the last 14 years. I am surprised they are not on suicide watch.
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I think they’re something like 72-80 in SEC play since 2001.
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