SEC V USC

SEC fans are already bitching again about the BCS. They claim that they are being unfairly treated. They think that Florida and Arkansas deserve to be in the BCS games as much as, or more than USC, Notre Dame or Michigan. (The only three teams that stand a chance to play Ohio State in my opinion.)

Now I agree with them that the BCS sucks. But being unfair to the SEC is not one of the reasons. I wrote a couple of posts on as blog called The Irish Trojan explaining why.


1) The SEC teams can either stop bitching about the voters/rankings taking strength of schedule into consideration, otr they can stop scheduling “Helen Keller School for the Blind” type teams.
2) Year in, year out I will stack USC’s strength of schedule against anybody’s. They never schedule the Western Carolinas.
gahrie — Monday, November 20, 2006 @ 4:00:45 am



Furthermore, I think having “elite” BCS teams consistently scheduling “speed bump” teams is bad for football.
1) First, I said consistently. There is nothing wrong with rewarding a Boise State, or a Rutgers with a home and home every once in a while. Teams like this have earned the exposure on the football field, and are at least potentially competitive. But look at some of this years SEC opponents. These are two of the opponents of the top two teams in each of the SEC’s two divisions:
Florida V Central Florida (3-8 in Conference USA) 42-0.
Florida V W. Carolina (2-9 in the 1AA Southern Conference) 62-0
Georgia V W. Kentucky (6-5 in the 1AA Gateway Conference) 48-12
Georgia V Alabama-Birmingham (3-8 in Conference USA) 34-0
Alabama V Louisiana-Monroe (2-8 in the Sun Belt Conference) 41-7
Alabama V FIU (0-10 in the Sun Belt Conference) 38-3
Arkansas V SE Missouri State (4-7 in the 1AA Ohio Valley Conference) 63-7
Arkansas V Louisiana-Monroe (2-8 in the Sun Belt Conference) 44-10
Not only are they scheduling speed bumps, they’re scheduling bad speed bumps. Only one of those opponents had a winning record at 6-5.
2) Second, I believe scheduling the Western Carolinas and FIUs of the world is incredibly bad for football.
A) It is bad for the “speed bumps” because they are basically hiring themselves out as tackling dummies. They get a big payday and some exposure, the BCS team gets a patsy to beat up on.
B) It is bad for the BCS teams because they aren’t matching themselves up against competitve teams, and thus suffer in the polls and rankings. Which leads to …
C) It’s bad for football because it almost forces the BCS teams to run up the scores on the “speed bumps” in an attempt to win favor from the voters so they’ll hopefully forget the fact that they were playing such an uncompetitive team.
This type of scheduling leads directly to the Miami-FIU incident. The Miami players get all cocky and aggressive because they know they are the clearly dominant team, and the FIU players get aggressive because they know they are being disrespected and dismissed by the Miami players. Then the score begins to get run up, somebody says or does something stupid, and a fight erupts.
gahrie — Monday, November 20, 2006 @ 4:59:28 am



There are 12 SEC teams. They play a 12 game schedule.
1) 1 team (Vanderbilt) played 6 away games. No one played more.
2) 6 of them played 5 away games. All 5 of Georgia’s away games were SEC games.
3) 5 of them played 4 away games. For 4 of them, all 4 away games were SEC games. Florida played 3 SEC away games, and Florida State away.
4) That means the SEC as a whole played an average of less than 5 away games, and 5 of them played no non-SEC away games.
5) They played a total of 8 non-SEC away games, and Vanderbilt played 2 of those.
6) Between them they played 8 games against 1AA teams.
Tell me again how tough the SEC teams have it.
gahrie — Monday, November 20, 2006 @ 7:48:07 am



SEC East Champ: Florida
4 away games, 3 SEC + FSU 4 Non-SEC games: Southern Miss. (Conference USA East Champ 7-4), Central Florida (3-8), W. Carolina (1AA 2-9), FSU (6-5)

Sec West Champ: Arkansas
4 away games, 4 SEC 4 Non-SEC games: USC (Pac-10 Champ 8-1), Utah State (1-10), SE Missouri State (1AA 4-7), Louisiana-Monroe (2-8)

Pac-10 Champ: USC
6 away games 5 Pac-10 + Arkansas 3 non PAC-10 games: Arkansas (SEC East Champ 10-1), Nebraska (Big 12 North Champ 8-3) and Notre Dame (10-1)
gahrie — Monday, November 20, 2006 @ 8:15:53 am

(there are a couple of minor editing changes)

Update 11/25/06: I just saw Urban Meyer complaining that Florida is not being given the respect they deserve in the BCS again. He was complaining about the issue of style points. "If that's what's making the decisions - style points, which I imagine that's what it is - we've got a problem. It's called winning and losing and playing a difficult schedule." Bullshit. Screw the style points. Florida had a cupcake schedule.

They played four away games in a 12 game schedule - 3 SEC games and FSU because they have a home and home agreement with them. Of their four non-SEC games, only one opponent finished with a better than .500 record (So. Miss at 8-4). They played a 1AA team (and a bad one at that)

And as for their SEC schedule, well see my analysis above. The SEC has one of the weakest combined non-conference schedules I have ever seen, and certainly must have the fewest road games ever scheduled, especially when you take the in conference away games out of consideration. SEC football is the most overrated conference in all sports.

Basically, Florida's schedule was a joke, they don't deserve to be ranked as high as #4, and you have to be truly delusional to believe they deserve a shot in the championship game. Florida is not even as good as Arkansas, and is probably going to lose the SEC championship next week anyway.

Lou Holtz is sitting here on ESPN's College Football Final talking about how difficult the SEC is. Rece Davis and Mark May are agreeing with him. The very next thing they do is talk about how historically bad FSU's season was, a team Florida could barely beat!