The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of the SEC

Every year the self-fulfilling prophecy continues…the over hype regarding the continued dominance of the South-Eastern Conference, better known as the SEC. Every year, it happens like clockwork and this year is no exception. Les Miles, the Head Football Coach at LSU began his rant against the PAC-10 Conference by proclaiming the dominance from top-to-bottom within his own conference, and the relative ease of USC romping through their own conference due to the fact they are the only decent team in the PAC-10. You see, this happens every year with glaring regularity and there is a reason for this, but I will get to that later.

First and foremost, like most things in life - if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. What is often overlooked in college football is that the BCS actually only rewards a team over the course of a two-to-three year run.

The 2005 Rose Bowl is a glaring example. A teams run to the BCS Championship actually takes a minimum of two, and most likely three years to complete the process. In the 2002 season, the USC Trojans manhandled a highly ranked Iowa program (11-1, only loss to National Champion Ohio State) 38-17 in the Orange Bowl, completing a 11-2 season and capping a renaissance return to the glory years that Trojan fans had become so accustomed to from the late 1960’s to the early 1990’s. In the season opener a year later, the Trojans shut-out Auburn on the road 23-0.

Many people felt that if a playoff was in place, USC would have most likely won the championship in 2002, much like Oregon State (11-1) might have won it in 2001 after their 41-9 dismantling of perennial power Notre Dame. These two victories over the course of two seasons propelled the Trojans to the AP National Championship during the 2003 season as the Trojans defeated Michigan 28-14 in the Rose Bowl, capping a 12-1 campaign.

LSU defeated Oklahoma that same season 21-14 in the Sugar Bowl to win the BCS National Championship. However, this was the second straight season that the national championship participants included a team who didn’t win their own conference as Kansas State manhandled Oklahoma 35-7 in the Big-12 Championship game that year, and a year earlier, Nebraska gained entrance after being blown out by Colorado 63-36 in the season final, which was even more shocking because the loss dropped the Cornhuskers out of the Big-12 championship game altogether.

So when (11-1) USC was left out of the BCS title game after ending the season being ranked number one in both polls, it left college football on shaky ground. There was a dead rat to be found because the stench was everywhere in college football.

The next season in 2004, a three-way trifecta occurred as USC and Oklahoma both won their conference championships (12-0), but the new blip on the BCS radar was Auburn, who also won their conference championship (12-0). Much was made regarding the lack of respect for the SEC due to Auburns elimination from the championship equation, but what people fail to realize is that the BCS doesn’t reward a one-year wonder with a ticket into the national championship game.

Sure you can get into a money-loaded BCS game, but not THE BIG GAME. This takes a minimum of a two year run, and many times, a three-year run is needed.

The same 2004 season turned out to be a breakout year for Vince Young and the Texas Longhorns as they defeated Michigan in one of the all-time great Rose Bowl venues 38-37 on a last second 45-yard field goal in the closing seconds. Due to the emergence of Vince Young as a Heisman trophy candidate and their big game the following season (2005) in week two against mega power Ohio State, who won the 2002 BCS championship in thrilling fashion as well (31-24 OT victory over Miami), the winner of this game would likely face USC in the national championship if everything worked out.

Indeed it did as both teams romped through the regular season undefeated, capping perhaps the greatest game in the history of college football with a 41-38 comeback victory by the Longhorns in Pasadena for the BCS National Championship.

The SEC, however, has never gotten over the disrespect shown to Auburn, but again, the BCS doesn’t reward one year wonders. It was very similar to Oregon’s BCS slight in 2001 when the Ducks were left out of the national championship game while the fore-mentioned Nebraska team was given the ticket, even after the Huskers failed to win their division, let alone the Big-12 championship.

Every year the big ol’ chocolate chip on the SEC shoulder has gotten bigger and bigger as their self-fulfilling claim as the best conference in the country gets louder and louder, all the while bashing that conference out west called the PAC-10. Now there is a history behind all this whining and bashing, but once again, I’ll save that for the grand finale.

I have stated many times that every conference has two dominant teams, a couple of very good teams, a bunch of average teams and two horrible teams. In just about every season this rings true. The average fan of the SEC claims that the conference is so strong from top-to-bottom. With a closer look, I think we can put this notion to bed. The reality is that the conference does have 4-to-5 traditional powers that gained much of their authority in college football from the emerging and ever growing television industry.

Walter Byers, who was the original president of the NCAA developed a television resolution in 1952 that gradually destroyed the foundation of college football as the ever growing revenue from television would turn many administrators into green eyed monsters.

The original television resolution mandated that every team could only be shown once nationally and twice regionally during a season and the revenue from the broadcasts would be equally shared. Many administrators, specifically in the southern sector where football reigns supreme distrusted Walter Byers and his legion of generals from the Big-10 and PAC-10 Conferences, who essentially operated the NCAA.

Although the NCAA controlled both price and output of the regular season, the bowl season was open game. It operated in a free market controlled only by public demand.

The Big-10 and PAC-10 Conferences cut their own throats here initially as they only sent their conference champions to the venerable Rose Bowl, considered by many to still be the grand daddy of them all. So if you didn’t win the conference championship within the Big-10 or the PAC-10,  you didn’t go bowling.

In the Southeast, Southwest and Atlantic Coast Conferences, due to the money available from televised bowl events, they often sent as many as five or 6 teams per conference to season ending bowl games.

As television gained more popularity and raced ever onward toward critical mass, the teams from these three southern conferences became forever branded in the eyes of television as the elite programs. They still harness much of their branding identity created from the early days of television today, even though their overall records since 1990 are less than stellar.

Since 1990, the SEC records against rival conferences is not as impressive as the SEC die-hards would lend you to believe: Big-12 (20-16), PAC-10 (10-9), Big East (15-20), Big-10 (30-23), ACC (65-50) and the old Southwest Conference (20-19).

So against the BCS Conference members since 1990, the SEC has an overall mark of 160 - 127. While this is good, it isn’t exactly dominant. But what the SEC teams truly hang their hat on is their record against the non-BCS regime: BWest (30-0), Sun (43-3), MAC (33-5), WAC (32-6), CUSA (57-20) and MWest (9-4) for an overall mark of 204-38.

The overall records inside their own conference supports my hypothesis. There are only two teams with over 100 conference wins since 1990. They include Florida (116) and Tennessee (101). There are three teams with at least 80 conference wins. They include Alabama (84), Auburn (83) and Georgia (81), while LSU is within five games of this group with (76). After that it gets downright ugly. Arkansas and Ol’ Miss (56), Mississippi State (47), South Carolina (45), Kentucky (36) and Vanderbilt (20).

So the SEC in reality has two dominant programs, four pretty good programs, four very average programs and two completely awful programs over the course of 16 years.

However, what makes the SEC so dangerous today is that Arkansas, Kentucky and South Carolina are on the rise, but the reality for me is only South Carolina with Steve Spurrier has the chance to sustain their emergence. Arkansas and Kentucky will prove to be one or two year wonders and then drop back to reality.

Now if you need a little more proof and your convinced these statistics are too old, lets take a look at the last couple of bowl outcomes. Sure this past season, the SEC went six and three in bowl games, but the season before they went a dismal three and three. So their two year bowl record of 9-6 isn’t exactly off the charts. Coupled with the fact that the All-time Chick-fillet bowl record matching the ACC and SEC Conference teams is 8-6 in favor the ACC throws a big monkey into the SEC domination theory as well.

What the SEC really has is six of the all-time television darlings of college football coupled with a great atmosphere of rivalry games. Most importantly, given the fact that the College Football Association flag, now better know as the Bowl Championship Series Alliance, runs deep through the heart of SEC country, we can begin to put some substance behind the continual bashing of the PAC-10 Conference.

You see, back in the mid 1970’s, when the civil war over television revenue broke out in college football, the Big-10 and PAC-10 Conferences supported Walter Byers and the NCAA. In fact there were only two schools from each conference who supported Chuck Neinas and his CFA empire.  I’m sure you recognize the names;  USC and UCLA from the PAC-10, and Ohio State and Michigan from the Big-10. These are the only two schools (from each conference which rivaled the CFA) who have drawn the favor of the CFA alliances since the CFA revolution took place in 1984.

Thus, they have special privileges within the BCS framework. In fact, if you look at the history of the participants in the BCS bowl picture, nearly all of the participants have been schools who whole-heartedly supported and defended the CFA cause. While schools like Utah, Oregon State, Oregon, Louisville, Boise State and Wisconsin have been granted the occasional ticket into BCS events, none of the fore-mentioned teams have gotten to the championship game, even when an undefeated or one-loss season may have merited a berth.

In fact, since the original Bowl Alliance in 1992, over 85% of the participants in the BCS type bowl games have originated from the CFA side of the equation. That is more than just happenstance. There is a reason for all of this conference bashing and self-fulfilling prophecies that occur each and every year.

So in conclusion, much has been made of the possibility of moving to a Final Four for college football. The reality of this is that the four participants are most likely to be the original members of that southern fried fraternity called the CFA. The BCS is nothing more than the evolutionary extension of the College Football Association movement and coupled with the Big-10 / PAC-10 / Rose Bowl Alliance, it feeds the continual self-fulfilling hypocrisy of the SEC, ACC and Big-12 Conferences, who are at the heart of the BCS Controversy due to their original alliances with Chuck Neinas and the CFA empire.

We are less than 45 days from the controversy continuing. So from Les Miles and company, let the smear campaigns and self-fulling prophecies begin as they are proven strategies to oust all non-BCS members (now exposed as non-CFA members) from ever competing for the national championship.