By Chris Marler
The SEC has been at the forefront of media attention throughout this bowl season, which isn’t much different from most postseasons. However, this year has been unique—and not in a good way.
Let’s set the record straight with two truths and a lie: SEC bowl edition.
Truth No. 1 – The SEC isn’t the best conference in the country this season.
The SEC isn’t the best conference in the country this year. And that’s fine. You could argue they weren’t the best conference last season either, and that’s fine, too.
The SEC has dominated college football for nearly two decades. It gets the best recruits, has won the most national titles, and sends the most players to the NFL each year. From start to finish, the SEC has dominated the sport in every way.
This year is not that year. Sure, the SEC had the best recruiting classes and will almost certainly have the most players drafted for the 19th consecutive year. However, the Big Ten was the better conference this season. Good for them. It makes sense they’re perceived as a deeper league after adding four teams to reach a total of 18. I’m happy for them, especially since I was tired of pretending the 14-team “Big Ten” wasn’t just a Big Three of Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State every season.
Being great one season doesn’t necessarily ensure a long term place at the table. That’s not sour grapes. That’s reality. Don’t believe me? Ask Ed Orgeron.
Truth No. 2 – The anti-SEC crowd is louder than the SEC homer crowd ever was.
For years, we’ve heard about supposed SEC bias in the media and TV networks. Those whispers became shouts last season when Alabama, undeservingly, made the College Football Playoff over undefeated Power Five champion Florida State. Let’s be clear: yelling at Kirk Herbstreit on Twitter isn’t a solution, a logical response, or even the right person to be mad at.
While we’re on the subject, the unrealized irony and lack of self-awareness from people dancing on the SEC’s grave has been hilarious. Those who have championed the argument that bowl games don’t matter for years have suddenly changed their minds, now on the edge of their seats, loudly supporting Illinois in the Cheez-It Bowl.
If bowl games don’t matter, why is the rest of the country using them as Exhibit A to dance on the SEC’s grave?
You’ve got “big J” journalists who have looked down on SEC fans for years, continuing to do so, but now they’re more indignant than ever. Senior columnists from respected publications across the country are reducing their Twitter takes to the level of low-brow trolls. For what? Did Kirby Smart, Nick Saban, and SEC fans get you in your feelings that much?
The same people who’ve banged the drum against SEC bias have cheered endlessly at the SEC’s gasp 8-6 bowl record with three teams in the playoff. Truly a massive fall from grace. I hope you can sense the sarcasm in the sentences I just wrote better than the media elites can sense the smell of their own biased BS over the last month.
The Lie – The SEC’s downfall is inevitable, and its dominance is over.
The demise of the conference has been greatly exaggerated. Three teams made the College Football Playoff. One team remains in the semifinals with a chance to play for the national title, and if that happens, it would be the 17th time in 19 years that an SEC team played in the national championship.
The idea that the SEC’s dominance is over has been more fabricated than a Southern accent in a Hallmark Christmas rom-com. Fans from other conferences have made baseless claims for a decade that the SEC was only good because they paid for players when no one else did. That seems accurate and not at all an irrational outburst about getting beat by that conference every year.
Now, in no way am I naive enough to believe that every SEC school has been above board. However, the day Southern Cal, Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State start playing by the rules is the day my cousin Erik stops lying about his height on Bumble. You’re 5-foot-10, man. It’s a respectable height. Come on.
I digress, but my point is, if you think the only reason SEC teams have been successful is because they were paying players, what do you think is going to happen with two “down” seasons and a needed increase in spending from those same people? Unlike the well of jokes about Alabama deserving to be in over SMU that Reddit, Tom Fornelli, and Danny Kanell posted incessantly, that Texas oil money isn’t drying up anytime soon.
Dance lightly. That’s the best advice I can give.
