Sports
The league doesn't rule college football
It's time for the fans of the SEC, the media machine and especially the commissioner to face the reality that has been simmering beneath the surface this entire college football season.
The world has changed significantly. And the old, reliable story that there is a different quality of football in the SEC than in other leagues is now more myth than reality.
Isn't admitting a problem the first step to salvation? Let's put it like the SEC is now a basketball league.
Okay, okay. That might have been a small blow. But Notre Dame 23, Georgia 10 is a quarterfinal result that should resonate for a long time, especially in the context of the SEC's miserable postseason.
A few weeks ago, some of the biggest names in the ESPN apparatus felt that college sports' premier business partner, the SEC, was giving short shrift to the College Football Playoff selection committee because only three teams made the field.
Now the league is down to one team, Texas, which wasn't even a member of the SEC 12 months ago and was a desperate fourth-and-thirteen conversation to be completely shut out of the semifinals. And when you combine it with the SEC record of 1-4 in postseason play against the Big Ten, things have changed. This is different.
A cynic might say that once it became legal to pay players, the SEC no longer had an advantage in acquiring talent. But a more generous interpretation of the current climate does not even have to lead to shameful stories. It's just a fact that it's harder to stockpile talent now, and recruits who might have been ticketed to the SEC in years past are organically joining a broader group of programs.
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By the way, that's not just a phenomenon of SEC vs. Big Ten or SEC vs. Big 12. It's an SEC vs. SEC phenomenon.
When Ole Miss gets some guys who might have gone to Alabama, and South Carolina gets some guys who might have gone to Georgia, and Texas A&M gets some guys who might have gone to LSU, everyone moves more toward the middle .
This isn't Urban Meyer's SEC. It's not Nick Saban's SEC. It's not even Kirby Smart's SEC anymore.
In December 2023, when it looked like the SEC would be shut out of the final four-team CFP, Commissioner Greg Sankey appeared on ESPN's “College GameDay” and said: That's not the real world of college football. Let's go back to Sesame Street, so we're very basic. One is not the other.
Well, what Sesame Street theme would describe the current state of affairs?
Count von Count might highlight the following simple math: In three CFP games, the SEC was outscored 96-66 and outscored 1,227-927. Imagine if Texas hadn't found a way to pull that off against an Arizona team on Wednesday because far too many SEC coaches thought they were inferior and unworthy of the Playoff because they didn't have to survive the SEC gauntlet.
Uh-huh. Certainly.
See, the schadenfreude isn't really about supporting Cinderella or taking down the big, bad bully. It is the utmost arrogance to believe that you can continue to get the benefit of the doubt year after year, in a sport that has changed as dramatically and rapidly as this one.
No one can dispute that the SEC's very best teams were quite dominant from 2006 through 2022, with a few notable but rare exceptions.
But let's get back to Sesame Street. Do you remember the song that goes: These are the people in your neighborhood?
Well, the SEC is a bad neighbor. It's destroying other conferences through expansion, it's bullying its peers into submission with threats to do something dramatically vague to withdraw from college sports as we knew them, and it's requiring postseason structures in not just football but all major sports to keep it deck to stack. his favor.
Perhaps a little humility and perspective is in order for dear leader Sankey.
Before Thursday, Notre Dame had been in BCS/CFP scenarios three times in the last 12 years. The scores of those matches:
Alabama 42, Notre Dame 14
Clemson 30, Notre Dame 3
Alabama 31, Notre Dame 14
While the SEC can't take credit for Clemson, the point is that Notre Dame, a truly great, historic program, could not compete at this level. It was a physical mismatch every time.
That is no longer true.
The SEC hasn't physically crushed anyone of note this postseason, and the 2024 calendar year began and ended with Alabama losing to Michigan. While the stakes this week weren't as high as last season's semifinals, the data points are piling up. You can no longer honestly argue that even the SEC's best teams have an overwhelming physical advantage. Even in its victory, Texas was pressed quite well.
Can the pendulum swing back? Naturally. Coaches adapt, and programs that don't like the results make changes. At some point the SEC will be back on top because that's what happens in a normal, healthy sport. Ebb and flow, real competition.
That's the way it shouldn't be: we won all these championships under a completely different set of rules, so you have to kneel before us now, nonsense that is way too natural for people around the league.
It's time for a new act. It's time to be honest. It's time to face the facts: you're just like everyone else now.
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Sources 2/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/columnist/dan-wolken/2025/01/02/college-football-sec-myth-falls-playoff/77416950007/ The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
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