Rantin’ & Ravin’: SEC bias debate hits a new low
05/30/2025
By Chris Marler
I have a lot of flaws.
I snore when I sleep, I’m not sure I still know how to change a tire, and portion control is about as foreign to me as Mandarin. However, none of those are my biggest flaws.
My biggest flaw is whenever I am talking about college football, for work or in general, I make sure to research whatever I’m talking about first. Even worse, I also assume that whoever else is involved in the discussion or debate has done the same.
What an idiot.
Why would someone take 30 seconds to do a quick Google search and avoid publicly announcing they don’t know something they somehow have a strong opinion about? My bad for assuming.
The flaw is definitely on my end. Thinking that @VolFinebaum42069 was worried about coming across as ignorant or wrong. I don’t know why I can’t learn that lesson. It’s not because of my faith in humanity, that’s for sure. It’s because in my mind the quickest point to agreement, understanding, or winning an argument is presenting facts as quickly and as often as possible.
That has somehow become a lost art in conversation now. Maybe in general, but especially in sports. The facts over feelings sentiment has disappeared in 2025 like a Blockbuster video or Pizza Hut lunch buffet. For whatever reason, yelling into the abyss with as little validity as you choose is the new norm, and it gets me every time.
That’s fine. To each their own. You do you.
Everything I just described was on full display this week with the incredible reactions, and overreactions, to anything that came out of Greg Sankey’s mouth during Spring meetings. I knew people hated the SEC. However, I didn’t know just how deeply passionate and irrational that hate had become until yesterday.
In case you missed it, for four days Greg Sankey met with the media and others at SEC Spring Meetings. He answered questions and provided insight to current situations and pending decisions. Every answer he provided was met with immediate negativity and collective scoffs from the college football world.
After four days of wearing a target and playing the villain for – checks notes – simply doing his job, and after championing his conference while being blamed for ruining the sport, Sankey did the unthinkable on the final day.
He brought notes. He brought evidence. He brought a seven page document highlighting different metrics, analytics, stats, and unbiased data points to help defend his stance and show his work to the class.
How was it received? About as poorly and as opposite as it was intended.
National pundits, coaches from other conferences, and, of course, Danny Kannell had a field day with it. The irony of chastising him for providing the factual information they refused to ever acknowledge is a level of unawareness that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.
That’s how polarizing and despised this league, its teams, and anyone connected to it have become across college football. Even doing the homework for everyone else sparked as much outrage as the countless losses they’ve handed out over the years.
That’s scary to think about.
The people who’ve been the loudest and whiniest about the conference aren’t the fans. It’s journalists, media members, and other coaches and ADs. It’s the people trusted to weigh in on or even make decisions on the sport. That group has gaslit all of us into thinking that SEC bias is so out of control that it’s breaking the sport.
All the while, their own bias has mirrored the very behavior they’ve been so quick to condemn.