A sign of strength? Or Mediocrity?

One comment I heard on the radio, in various forms, was 'even though they have 2 losses, I still see Florida as one of the top teams in the country.' Well, make that 3. Meanwhile, Kentucky, the #2 team in this mighty conference, loses to Mississippi.

The Punditry would say that's a sign of strength, that the Southeast Conference has such a brutal schedule. Most of them would have you believe that 3 losses in conference is superior to undefeated in most other conferences.

But the question remains, if the better teams are losing to the more average teams in the league, is that not also a sign of mediocrity? A couple of weeks ago when Oklahoma and Texas were beaten by lesser teams in the conference, that was widely proclaimed as a sign of the weakness of the Big 12. Now I'm one of those who would agree that the Big 12 has fallen greatly in stature (and I'm a Big 12 guy). But if the logic is true for the Big 12, it remains true for the supposedly mighty SEC.

I'm not anti SEC, in fact I love the passion for college football that I see from their fan base, from top to bottom.

But, I don't buy into the hype that the SEC is head and shoulders above the rest.

In fact, were you aware that SEC teams have a losing record at this point against teams from BCS conferences? They are currently 4-5 , including a losing record against the Big East. Two things stand out, one being they've played so few games against BCS conference teams, the other being that such a totally superior conference would also be pretty dominant in their record against BCS conference teams.

One stat that is in their favor: SEC teams are undefeated in out of conference games against teams that are not in BCS conferences. No one else can say that, particularly the Big 10 whose losses include Appalachian State and North Dakota State. However, having said that, much of the reason for this is that most of their out of conference matchups are against teams from arguably the weakest 1A conference, the Sun Belt.

Having said that, the Southeast Conference has avoided some of the total embarrasments that have befallen some of the lowlier teams in other conferences. And maybe for that reason alone, right now I would probably rate the SEC as the strongest conference in football. But that said, other conferences are not that far off. Maybe it's that parity everyone keeps talking about, but there aren't many easy games in any of the BCS conferences. If you looked at the strength of teams top to bottom in the Big East, looked at their records out of conference, but then put names of SEC teams on those schools, you would find the Punditry still making a case about how brutal the schedule was and how much stronger the conference was. You could probably say the same thing about the Big 12, where there is really no overwhelmingly weak team, except maybe Baylor and possibly Iowa State. I probably would have included Nebraska in that group if not for nearly beating Texas in Austin today.

The fact that there are no easy games in the conference isn't enough any more. If the best teams in the conference want to claim being among the elite in college football, they still have to beat the lesser teams on their schedule.