SEC Overrated - Redux

As a follow-up to Ian's post, I wanted to throw another shovel of dirt onto SEC superiority. I had quite an original thought that I wanted to share.

The SEC almost universally refuse to travel, and only rarely takes on a top out-of-conference opponent. As a result, their teams' schedules almost always include 8 conference games, 2 FCS games, 1 mid-major FBS game and sometimes a rivalry. So how are we to judge the might of such a conference?

Bowl games would be a good start. Since 1992, the SEC's record in Bowl games is 89-57. That's a .640 winning percentage. Not the picture of dominance when you look past the current BCS title streak. What this tells me is that the conference is woefully top-heavy.

Another way to judge? How about looking at the bottom half. When people talk about the weekly gauntlet, that should include ALL the SEC teams on the schedule. This year, the bottom 7 would be Miss State (4-4/8-4), Ole Miss (3-5/6-6), Missouri (2-6/5-7), Arkansas (2-6/4-8), Tennessee (1-7/5-7), Auburn (0-8/3-9) and Kentucky (0-8/2-10). So 5 teams are NOT Bowl eligible. Take a closer look. Kentucky's only wins were Kent State and Samford. Auburn beat LA-Monroe, NM State and Alabama A&M. Look at some of the other victories in this group. Bottom line, these 7 teams would STRUGGLE to win games in the MAC, or MWC.

Now here's my original thought. A constant critique of Notre Dame by idiotic SEC fans is that we would be the 7th best team in the SEC. Oh really? So let's do a mental exercise and see what happens when you take a Notre Dame team fresh off back to back 8-5 seasons, with a 3rd year coach and a redshirt freshman starting at QB and put them smack in the middle of the SEC in 2012. Wait a minute, WE DON'T HAVE TO IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO! This is almost EXACTLY the Texas A&M Aggies in 2012!!!

The Aggies are coming off of 9-4 and 7-6 records. Almost identical to ND. They have a 1st year coach, a disadvantage to ND. They also have a redshirt freshman QB. And how did they do? They went 10-2, lost 2 games to mighty Florida and LSU by a combined 8 points, upset the unbeatable Alabama in Tuscaloosa, got player of the year for the redshirt freshman QB and coach of the year for the 1st year coach.

If this doesn't expose the myth of SEC dominance, then I just can't argue with you anymore.

So the next time you hear some redneck hillbilly from SEC-country tell you ND would be the 7th best team in the SEC, bring up A&M and how they ROLLED through the mightly SEC in only their 1st season in the conference.