I have a feeling it’s a down year for the SEC… We’ll see who develops as good teams, but LSU could be the only good team in the west and the east is still TBD… What happened to Auburn? Steep fall from glory on the plains… (no complaints here btw)
It is definitely a PARITY year in the SEC, but not necessarily a down year. Kentucky, South Carolina, and even Vanderbilt have a ton of experience and should be able to compete, while the top 3 SEC East powers (UT, UF, UGA) might be having a bit of a down year. If UF’s defense can be even minimally effective, they will be a top-10 team. In the West, it would be a mistake to write off Auburn, Alabama, and Arkansas as “good teams”. Alabama’s offense looked very impressive last week, particularly the running game. Arkansas has the leading heisman candidate. I think you’ll see 10 SEC teams in bowl games this year (everybody besides Mississippi St and the loser of next week’s Ole Miss / Vanderbilt game), which is not an indicator of a down year. The SEC still looks better than the Big 10, the ACC, the Big 12, and the Big East… it’s hard to compare the Pac 10, but the SEC and Pac 10 may be the top football conferences this year, with the Big 10 coming in third.
Michigan? Good B-School. Horrible Football team.
“The SEC still looks better than the Big 10, the ACC, the Big 12, and the Big East… it’s hard to compare the Pac 10, but the SEC and Pac 10 may be the top football conferences this year, with the Big 10 coming in third.” What are you basing this statement on? I don’t even like college football and I know that Cincy smoked Oreg St. last week and South Florida just took down a ranked team from the SEC. It’s time to start giving the big east a little respect.
Randall, Oregon St. is a garbage football program, but I’ll hand it to USF–that was a great win. But the rest of the Big East plays NOBODY out of conference! Middle Tenn. St? Marshall? WVU and Louisville, the Big East’s top programs, have some of the easiest schedules in the nation, and yet their defenses still give up huge point totals. Louisville gave up 42 points to Middle Tenn. State! You have to EARN respect by playing and beating the best. You don’t get respect by hanging 73 on Murray St.
It’s a circular argument, they’re considered the easiest scheds because the teams in the big east get no respect. What makes the SEC schedules (for instance) so difficult is the fact that they play each other. When they’re all ranked so high that’s obviously gonna jack up their “strength of schedule”. The polling system sucks on so many levels. They should play an 8 week regular season, then have a 32 team, 5 week playoffs that ended with a true national champion. Now that would be cool
Randall, the SEC has about 50 years of earned respect–national titles, Heisman Trophy winners, the DEFENDING national champ Florida (who absolutely annihilated Ohio St. just 9 months ago), an LSU team that just stomped my Hokies without so much as getting winded, and easily is the 1st or 2nd best recruiting conference in America each year based on the rankings. The current slate of Big East teams, however, has almost no history of beating anyone substantial (sure, you can pick 2 or 3 games over the last 3 years). Beyond that, the Big East has some of the weakest OOC scheduling in America. Bar none. Add to that the top 2 teams (WVU and Louisville) who have some of the worst defenses in the entire country. The Big East is the beneficiary of terrible scheduling. RUTGERS is the 3rd best team in the Big East! RUTGERS! RUTGERS! Let me spell that out: R-U-T-G-E-R-S!
That 50 years of earned respect didn’t seem to matter when a middle of the pack big east school walked onto a ranked SEC team’s field and took them down. You think South Florida will be ranked after this week? Of course not, because no one had them anywhere near ranked before… Face it, the whole system sucks…it’s held with a vice grip in the dirty hands of an old boy network of conferences and stodgy pollsters that value “history” more than on the field performance
Randall, Auburn has been down since the 2005 Sugar Bowl (when, ironically, they beat my Hokies 16-13). They were ranked in the top 25 based on reputation (I agree), which is another reason the win isn’t THAT big (but I do give USF credit for a nice OT win). But the problem is, that may have been the biggest win in USF history; that’s not saying much for earned respect. Conferences have to perform well for years to earn the respect the SEC has. The system does suck and it shouldn’t be that way, but the Big East isn’t the only victim of this. In fact, if the Big East as a whole didn’t have a joke of an OOC schedule year after year, this may not be an issue.
two thoughts on the usf auburn game: 1 - i’d argue that beating auburn wasn’t their biggest win ever. i’d say beating #7 west virginia last year would have been a bigger win. 2 - you don’t “beat” a team that turned the ball over five times. auburn might have given the game to just about any team that walked on the field saturday night.
mlh, I agree on 2. The only reason I’d say beating #7 WVU is not the same is because, once again, teams like WVU don’t have to prove their worth OOC. Did you see the way “#4” WVU played against MARSHALL on Saturday? They freakin’ gave up 24 points to MARSHALL and were in a battle until the 4th quarter. They’re rankings have been so over-inflated since BC, Miami, and VT left the Big East. I mean, RUTGERS is one of their toughest games this season! RUTGERS! I can’t even stress that enough; anyone who is well versed in college football knows Rutgers is a perennial joke (until the New Big East was formed).
rankings can always be debated, but its one of the few things we have to go on from year to year. beating team a, regardless of their conference, ranked #17 in their 2nd game of the season is hard to argue is a bigger win than beating #7 in their 11th game (when the only loss over the previous 10 games was to a team ranked #5). also, the word i heard was that some were predicting the usf win anyway, saying auburn was overrated and usf underrated.
mlh, having beaten down WVU 75% of the time we’ve played them over the last 15 years, I can say with certainty that #7 was a garbage ranking for them based on their schedule.
“based on their schedule”, what bowl did boise state deserve to go to last year? what about michigan? you have to base your assesment of a team on more than the teams they play. wouldn’t you agree? being number 7 after 10 games is much different than number 17 after one. being beaten by vt lots of times over 15 years should have nothing to do with how you judge a team right now (or last year).
Kentucky will end this talk of the Big East being a top conference this weekend. The Big East is simply being hyped by ESPN and other northeast media outlets.
First chance for Woodson to impress the world this year. Looks like it could be a statement game for UK…
“mlh, having beaten down WVU 75% of the time we’ve played them over the last 15 years, I can say with certainty that #7 was a garbage ranking for them based on their schedule.” Dude, will you stop with this? Last I heard, college players rotate every 3-4 years. Programs can improve, even if they’re not on your pre-approved list. Enough with this “they’ve always sucked so they must still suck” nonsense. Just another thing I can add to my list of why I can’t take college football seriously. Bottom line is things should be settled on the field, not in conjecture or in the polls. That doesn’t happen in college foootball.
There is still room available on the Rich Brooks bandwagon. Spaces could be filled by late Saturday evening.
Kentucky Wildcats, #8 in the country. I thought the devil was kidding when I agreed to sell him my soul for a top ten team.
Sorry, didn’t have time to read the whole thread but this is the ranking the guy who said Mich was top 5 was probably referring to. It just came out this week I think. www.which-mba.com It’s done by the Economists Intelligence Unit