Every conference is going to have the celler dwellers. Someone has to lose in the conference when they play conference games. Simple mathmatics. There are several ways to identify whether a conference has depth year over year. The SEC won seven straight BCS championships. Of those seven straight, four different teams won them. Four different teams from the same conference. Four. That's elite depth. The second way to measure depth is how did the middling teams in the conference perform? Again, the teams that typically fall in this category in the SEC faired extremely well against other conferences in bowl games. The lower tier teams in the SEC? Vandy, UK, Arkansas. All three were represented well in bowl games within that ten year stretch. All three were ranked in the top 25 on occasion. All three had big wins over teams within the SEC that fall under the more elite category. That's depth.
Yea, four teams from the same conference. This isn't a professional league, turnover occurs frequently. Everyone gets that (and I could go on and on about how the JUCO farm system and over signing helps speed up that turnover, but that can be a discussion for another time).
That doesn't prove depth in any given year. It doesn't. It proves that the opportunity to go from bad to good in the SEC is greater than other leagues. Case and point? Florida. It happens elsewhere (Michigan is the obvious example), but where it will take years for Michigan to rebuild, it can be turned around at an SEC school in 1 to 2.
Now, probably the second best conference is the Pac 12. Over that same stretch I believe there are only two teams that have winning records in conference - Oregon and Stanford. Every other team in the Pac 12 has had some seasons with overall losing records. UCLA, USC, Washington, Arizona, Arizona State. Good some years... horrible a lot of other years. So... the Pac 12 depth during the era of SEC dominance is very weak and outside of Oregon and Stanford pretty much a joke.
Whoa, you don't get it both ways. You can't call out some Pac-12 schools for being up and down, but use this as an example of SEC depth.
Again, the teams that typically fall in this category in the SEC faired extremely well against other conferences in bowl games. The lower tier teams in the SEC? Vandy, UK, Arkansas. All three were represented well in bowl games within that ten year stretch. All three were ranked in the top 25 on occasion. All three had big wins over teams within the SEC that fall under the more elite category. That's depth.
If that's depth, you just described it for the Pac 12 as well. "Some Good Years, some horrible years." But, because the SEC had the national champion, those horrible years by teams in the conference get overlooked.
You also pointed out how they had losing records in conference, but overall winning records. Did you see the cupcake list? I mean, in 2008, the bottom 8 teams had 48 wins, 23 were cupcakes.
Bowl records and head to head against other conferences are typically the only way to measure conference strength. And with that, the last ten years the SEC has dominated both. And not simply the elite SEC teams. The middling teams have faired very well, as have the three teams mentioned that typcially fall at or near the bottom.
I know I only did 3 years, and I'm sure it's done better since then (although, I'd bet that from 2004-2007 it's actually worse), but the teams I listed have an overall losing record against Power Conference foes.
You mentioned how "We knew where Notre Dame would fall". Did you say the same about Missouri and TA&M when they joined? In their second seasons, Missouri wins the East and TA&M finishes second in the West. Hell, I believe right now, a Missouri team that got beat by Indiana is second in the East.
My problem with this whole thing isn't SEC bias. I agree that the top teams in the conference are usually, on a whole, better than other conferences. When someone says the SEC is better than the others, I agree. Their best teams have proven they are better than other conferences best teams. But where I take exception is this misplaced idea that EVERY WEEK in the SEC is some grind.
Let's face it, in most years, the top teams between conferences don't play between leagues. I mean, the signature wins right now for the SEC out of conference are an Auburn team that will finish 1-3 in the SEC beating a K-State team that will finish 3-4 (in my opinion) in the Big 12. Alabama (1-3 in the SEC) beating a WVU team that will probably finish 5th in the Big 12. And LSU (3-5) beating a Wisconsin team that will finish 4-5 in the Big Ten.
None of those games were blow outs. And none should be a surprise. If the team that finishes 3rd in the SEC beats the team that finishes 5th in the Big 12, does that prove anything conference wise? It's a good win, no doubt, but to cast it as a referendum on an entire conference is foolish at best.
If Arkansas beats Mississippi State, you'll see the problem, and I'll post about it again. If that happens, Mississippi State will drop about 3 spots. Arkansas will be considered a loss, but an "SEC Loss". Disregard the fact that their best win is against a Texas Tech team who is horrible. Arkansas plays in the SEC, so they must be good, right?
