SEC Struggles in Bowl Season

There is nothing more annoying during college football season than listening to announcers constantly hyping up the SEC as being an immortal conference, a man among boys compared to all other leagues.

The hype machine has been going full-force this season, with constant slobbering over Florida quarterback Tim Tebow during his senior year being the most common topic. Alabama running back Mark Ingram winning the Heisman didn't slow the hype machine down any either.

However, Tebow and Ingram have something in common: they play for the only two SEC teams that are truly good enough to talk trash. Both Florida and Alabama are good. Very good.

The problem is, after these two teams there is a sharp decline in the quality of football that's played by the rest of the teams in the SEC.

SEC fans wouldn't agree with that though. Fans from the other ten schools in the SEC constantly pump up their conference, acting as if playing in the SEC is the most daunting task you could imagine and every game on the schedule is against a quality opponent. Never mind the fact that Florida cruised through their entire regular season schedule undefeated while beating exactly one (1) ranked team all year, against LSU in Baton Rouge. Doesn't sound like a murderer's row schedule to me.

When you really dig down and observe the facts rather than the hype created by the media and fans, it's not hard to see how average the SEC really is when you get past Florida and Alabama.

Okay, the SEC sent 10 teams to bowl games this year. But when you look closely at it, six of the ten bowl teams from the SEC had mediocre 7-5 records during the regular season (Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Auburn, and Georgia).

SEC fans will say that this is due to the extreme competitiveness of the league, where there's never an easy win and you don't get to play against any cupcakes. That's a reasonable claim, but the SEC fans sang a completely different tune last year when the ACC was the conference that sent 10 teams to bowl games. Last year, the SEC party line response to the ACC's 10 bowl participants was that the ACC is full of mediocrity. Yet when the SEC does it this year, it's portrayed as a display of the extreme quality depth in the SEC. That's the definition of a double standard, my friends.

How have the results been on the field, where the games are actually played? The SEC has struggled, to the point where many SEC fans are embarrassed by the conference's performance so far.

To date, the SEC is 5-4 in it's bowl games, with the only team still waiting to play being Alabama, on Thursday night in the BCS National Championship game. Even without looking deeply into the games, 5-4 is obviously pretty mediocre. When looking at the way the games have played out, it becomes even more apparent that the SEC is simply overrated.

The first loss for the SEC came when Kentucky was defeated 21-13 at the hands of Clemson in the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl on December 27. This one wasn't so bad for the SEC considering that Kentucky isn't known as a football school, but the Wildcats did defeat traditional SEC powerhouses Georgia and Auburn this year, and were touted all year by SEC fans as an underrated team who would thrive in almost any other conference.

The next defeat the SEC suffered also came at the hands of the ACC, but this one was on a bigger stage. Virginia Tech absolutely throttled Tennessee in the Chik-fil-a bowl on New Year's Eve by a score of 37-14. During the season, A Tennessee fan told me that he thought the Vols would be the second best team in the ACC. He also said that Tennessee's highly publicized defense would shut down Virginia Tech's mediocre offense, which ranked 6th in the ACC. So much for that. The Hokies racked up 438 yards and flat out embarrassed Tennessee and first year head coach Lane Kiffin under the bright lights.

On New Years Day, LSU met Penn State in the Capital One Bowl, considered by many people to be the most prestigious non-BCS bowl. Despite the theory that the big, slow Penn State team from the Big 10 couldn't keep up with the speedy LSU Tigers, Penn State came out and punished LSU early and often. The Tigers were held to just 41 yards rushing, and Penn State overcame a late LSU rally to win the game 19-17.

Perhaps the most embarrassing performance of all by the SEC this bowl season was the exhibition that was put on by the South Carolina Gamecocks. Playing against a 7-5 UConn team from the Big East in the PapaJohns.com Bowl, few people expected South Carolina to have much trouble. Heck, if I didn't know that South Carolina only has 4 bowl wins in school history, I may have picked South Carolina to win myself. As it turned out, the Gamecocks laid an egg. They barely even scored a point. UConn led 20-0 with 3 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter before South Carolina finally got on the scoreboard. After having a Gamecock fan tell me that South Carolina could beat UNC by 3 touchdowns and win the ACC, it was rather amusing watching UConn drag them around the field for 3 hours.

The interesting thing about these 4 losses from the SEC is that not only did they lose the games, but all 4 of the teams also failed to cover the spread. LSU was favored to win, and lost in a close game. Kentucky was a one touchdown underdog and lost by 8 points, so they at least came close to covering. Tennessee was a slight underdog and got beat by 23 points. South Carolina was a slight favorite and still got rocked by two touchdowns.

Aside from the SEC's 4 losses in bowl games thus far, even their wins have been very shaky. If not for two overtime wins against vastly inferior opponents, the SEC could be 3-6 right now instead of 5-4.

In the Outback Bowl, Auburn was heavily favored against Northwestern, a school known much more for it's academics than it's football. After a 4th quarter collapse, Auburn needed overtime and a lot of luck to win the game 38-35.

In a similar situation, Arkansas was heavily favored against East Carolina in the Liberty Bowl. The Razorbacks had to rely on 3 consecutive missed field goals from ECU kicker Ben Hartman in the final minutes, and even with ECU's special teams woes Arkansas barely escaped with a 20-17 overtime win.

Ole Miss made a relatively good showing in the Cotton Bowl, beating Oklahoma State 21-7. However, it should be noted that the game was much closer than the final score indicates. It was tied 7-7 until Ole Miss scored to take the lead with 4:03 to play, and then scored again on an interception return for a touchdown with 3:12 remaining to ice it. Also, Oklahoma State's best offensive weapon Dez Bryant was inactive for the game.

Georgia played well and handled Texas A&M easily in the Independence Bowl, 44-20, but that was no shocker when you take into account some of the ugly losses Texas A&M has suffered this season: 47-19 against Arkansas, 62-14 against Kansas State and 65-10 against Oklahoma.

Then of course there was Florida, who put on a clinic in the Sugar Bowl as they routed previously undefeated Cincinnati by a score of 51-24. As I said, Florida is legit and so is Alabama. I'm not surprised at all that Florida went out and took care of business on the field. It would be great if the rest of the SEC could learn to walk the walk like Florida does, rather than just talking the talk all year long and falling flat on their faces in bowl games.