I consider myself to be a pretty adventurous eater. I've eaten the world's hottest hot sauce, the world's hottest hot chili pepper (the Carolina Reaper), gator, cooter and chitlins...once, which will be my lifetime chitlin ration. I always try to approach my plate with an open mind, but even I'm not sure what to make of "the hottest food trends of 2015."
I read an article recently on what's considered hot and hip in the culinary world for the coming year. At first, I was dismayed not to see barbecue on the list, but maybe that's actually a good thing. Maybe we've all just accepted that smoked pig represents all that is good and right about food, so it isn't "a trend." Apparently pig bones are, however. Bone broth made the list. Soaking bones in hot water isn't a new phenomenon at all. People have been doing that for ages, then using the resulting flavorful liquid to make soup. In this case, the broth isn't an ingredient for making something else...this is hip, newfangled broth after all. People apparently just drink the stuff steaming hot from a cup. There is already at least one take-out bone broth window in New York. Bone broth is supposedly chock full of nutrients and the bones don't come from run-of-the mill farm animals. The more exotic the better, I've read, which is dubious. If I handed you hot water in which chicken bones had been soaked, would it really taste any different than the hot water in which ocelot bones had been soaked. I submit it would not. Maybe this stuff will become popular, but I don't see myself giving up sweet tea for bone squeezins. "Hey, where is that lemur femur I bought from the butcher yesterday? I cannot approach the day without a hot cup of liquid in which the skeletal remains of an obscure primate have been soaked." I would never actually say that but did want to type the phrase "lemur femur." Seriously, is there much difference between this and drinking the juice out of a can of Vienna weenies. I don't think there is. I should open up a take out, hot, stand-up weenie juice window in New York. LOOK AT ME, I'M A TRENDY CHEF! Another item on the list is bugs. Chefs all over the country are now apparently finding inventive ways to get bugs on the menu. From what I read, you probably won't find dung beetle parmesan or skeeter salad on the menu, but you might find insect-based flour, protein powders and energy bars. Bugs are rich in protein, but so are peanut butter and chicken...why don't we just eat peanut butter and chicken? If this is a real thing that's happening, I think it just shows people will eat anything they are told is healthy for them. I'm not doing it, for the simple reason that I've spent most of my life trying really hard NOT to eat bugs. When I was young, we got roaches in our house. I was told they were filthy, disease carrying invaders that we needed to try to kill. When little mealy bugs got in our cereal boxes, we threw them away because EWWW BUGS! I've had gnats and flies and whatnot fly in my mouth when I'm outside and they make me cough and hack and almost vomit. Why would I willingly eat the gross things now, and pay for the right to do so? I think allowing people to serve bugs in restaurants opens up some bad possibilities. "Waiter, get the manager over here now! There's a fly in my soup," I imagine an irate customer saying. "Oh that, uh, that's, uh, that's supposed to be there. Yeah. New thing. Bugs are very trendy restaurant fare and only a rube who isn't hip to new food trends would complain about such a thing," the waiter would lie and say. "Oh, yeah, uh, I knew that. I was gonna complain that I only got that one fly." Have you heard of matcha? I haven't. It's apparently a green tea powder in Japan. Part of the experience of drinking it is the serenity that comes with boiling the water to make the tea. I'll just tell you now, that isn't catching on in America. We get PO'd waiting 90 seconds for a dang Hot Pocket to heat in the microwave, so I don't think that aspect will be as popular here as in Japan. As for the flavor, matcha is described as "very grassy." Yummy. Speaking of grass, marijuana is legal in lots of states now, so chefs (ones who wear tie-dye shirts and listen to Phish) have started infusing its flavor into different items, including syrup. This sounds like a ploy to sell more food to me. "Waiter, I know I just, like, totally finished this stack of pancakes, but can you bring me, like, another stack of pancakes? And could you crush up some Doritos on the pancakes, and bring me some bacon, and pie, and popcorn if there's any in the kitchen? That would be awesome." Several items that fall under the heading "brain food" made the list, including very dark chocolate, avacodo, fish and berries. Maybe if people eat brain food they'll be smart enough not to eat bugs and bones. Maybe these things will only take off only among the people who have to be part of the "it" thing of the moment, or maybe they'll actually find popularity everywhere. Not in my house, though. I'll just stick to barbecue, thanks. It might not garner as much attention because of the more high-profile openings in our state right now, but Class A Fox Creek is looking for a new head football coach and athletic director.
Russ Schneider, the only coach the Predators (what a totally bad ass name, by the way...they should put Schwarzenegger on their helmets...unless your mind drifts toward other meanings of predator, in which case it could be a panel van or something and actually isn't a good mascot name at all...I'm getting really sidetracked here) have ever had. He took the job when the North Augusta-area charter school first opened and built it into a respectable team that contends for the playoffs annually. After undergoing seasons with two or fewer wins in each of the first four years, the team has posted some eight and nine-win campaigns. The Predators were 6-5 this past year and won a region title before losing to St. Joe's in the first round of the playoffs. I don't claim to be an expert on anything related to the inner-workings and intricacies of athletics down yonder way, but from the outside looking in, Fox Creek athletics in general have been gradually improving for several years...whether that's related to other stuff I've written on this blog already or not, I don't know, but they are certainly becoming more formidable I think it would qualify as a good Class A job. Anyone with insight of any kind (on the job, candidates or awesome team names) please leave it in the comment section. A story on Schneider is here... I don't like it when inanimate objects make me feel bad about myself. This happens more often than you might imagine. I'm notoriously clueless when it comes to a sense of direction. I thought that problem was solved when I got a smart phone, because Siri, the magical voice inside that phone, can give you step-for-step directions. I was trying to find Camden High School last basketball season for a one-game region title playoff and she guided me to Camden fine, but then directed me into a residential neighborhood and told me to turn left into some dude's driveway. "They aren't playing a basketball game in this guy's shed," I said. "Turn left!" she insisted. "This ain't the (bleepity bleepin) way you goob," I yelled back "I'm sorry you feel that way," Siri replied. A guilt trip from my phone. I SO don't need that. Of course, Siri has a woman's voice so... Anyway, it happened again this weekend. For some background, I should tell you that I have somehow become a pretty good cook in the past few years. That's hard to figure, because for much of my adult life, if it hadn't been for my microwave and people in paper hats handing me bags through take-out windows I'd have starved. I actually enjoy cooking now, particularly on my grill and in my smoker. There are only two instances I can think of when I made stuff that was just plain old, flat-out bad. One of those was recently. I saw some nice-looking cod for sale and bought it. I know you really should fry or bake it, but I'd read a recipe online that called for grilling it and I'd always rather grill something if I can, so I went for it. When I went to turn the cod, even with my giant, forklift-sized man spatula, it started falling to pieces. Duh...flaky, white fish comes apart on grill grates. I left it there for another few minutes then shoveled the crumbling globs of fish meat onto a plate. The flavor was actually pretty good, but the consistency was somewhere between candle wax and rubber tubing. It didn't really bother me, though, because I knew the whole time I was kind of pushing my luck to grill it. The other instance of outdoor-cooking nastiness has bothered me...quite a bit, actually. When I first got my smoker (in 2010) the first thing I cooked was ribs. They were pretty good from the start and have gotten better over time. After I'd been smoking ribs for a few months (all of the pork variety) I saw some beef ribs on sale for a dirt-cheap price at the grocery store. A little variety would be good, I thought, so I bought them. I basically prepared and smoked them in exactly the same way I did baby backs and "country-style" ribs. They looked pretty good when I was done with them, so I sliced one off (which wasn't as easy as it ought have been, which is what we in the writing business call foreshadowing) and took a bite. Let me amend that last sentence, I TRIED to take a bite. The things were so tough I could barely tear away any meat. The texture was sort of like if a big oak stick and a belt could somehow have a baby. There were a few spots, here-and-there, that were easy to bite and fairly succulent, but the flavor was off. Big, fat FAIL on my part. The things had no redeeming qualities whatsoever...they were tough and tasted like disappointment and dirty towels. I told myself it wasn't my fault...it was obviously bad, cheap meat, which is why the price was so low. And hey, I live in South Carolina, we barbecue pigs and chickens. Cows are for hamburger and steaks so up yours, cow. I haven't dwelled on it really, but those horrible beef ribs have popped in my mind from time-to-time, especially as I got OK at smoking brisket and got much better at other kinds of ribs. Obsessed is a strong word and indicates a level of craziness...it was a recurring thought. Let's use that description. So, fast-forward...I was at the grocery store Saturday and was looking through the meat when my eye caught a big ol' hunk of beef ribs. Now, this seems improbable, but the dang things started talking junk...they told me I couldn't cook them and sucked at barbecuing. I WILL NOT BE MOCKED BY MEAT! I bought the things, determined to show them who was boss. Like Clark Griswold taking his family to Wally World for the hap, hap, happiest flippin' vacation imaginable, I was not going to be diswayed from my goal by past failure or mishap. I cooked the ribs Sunday. I've learned quite a bit since my first ill-fated stab at beef ribs. Part of my mistake was treating them just like pork ribs, which was a big mistake since the cooking and preparation are very different. First of all, I don't think I removed the membrane the first time I cooked them and may not have known one was even there. You want to do that because it allows smoke and rub to permeate the meat better and because, with pork ribs, the membrane gets chewy and wax papery (if that's even a word) and detracts greatly from the pig-eating experience. With beef ribs, I've learned since last time, the membrane turns, basically, into a friggin' saddle. Taking these off of pork ribs is easy, requiring only that you make one incision with your knife, then give a tug. It's like turning back the covers on a delicious meat bed. It wasn't quite as easy with the beef ribs...some of it came off easily, the rest was tedious. I felt like Jason Vorhees hacking away at fornicating teens next to the lake with a machete as I cut, stabbed and yanked. I finally got most of it off and decided to marinate them for a while, both to add some flavor and to tenderize the meat. It was pretty elementary stuff, I just used beef stock and worcestershire sauce. After a while, I took the ribs out and prepared to rub them. The last time, I'd pretty much used the same rub I do for pork ribs, which has some sugar in it that provides some sweetness. That's an ill fit for beef, so I treated them a lot like I do brisket. I used salt and pepper, a little ancho-coffee rub and just a bit of some applewood-chipotle rub fellow blawger Jed Blackwell gave me for Christmas. Bold flavors for a bold piece of meat. Next came the smoker. The previous time, I'd used hickory and I think some fruit wood, which is a good mix for pork, but less so for beef. It would be straight-up hickory for the beef ribs. My smoker has a water pan in it, where I normally put a mix of water and fruit juice. It imparts flavor and keeps the meat I'm cooking moist. The one problem is that it lowers the smoker temp a little and I wanted to get the temp up, figuring that the ribs had enough fat (even after I'd cut some off) to stay moist on their own. I took out the water pan and put the ribs in. After an hour or so, I put the water pan back in. At the two-hour mark, I looked at the ribs and the meat was starting to draw in a little, exposing the ends of the rib bones. Perfect! I wrapped them in foil, which holds the temperature in, speeds up cooking and prevents more smoke from penetrating the meat (I figured they had enough smoke already) and put them back in for another 90 or so minutes. At that point I opened them up and applied sauce. Now, I am a mustard-based disciple, but that seemed an ill fit for beef. My wife doesn't care for mustard-based sauce (I love her anyway), so I have developed a red sauce that she enjoys. The problem with that sauce is that it's fairly sweet and again, I don't think (and have heard for a while now) that sweet sauce works on beef that well. My preference is to ALWAYS use my own sauces and rubs whenever possible, but I don't have a bold red sauce in my repertoire just yet. So, I found one in the fridge and cut it with a little worcestershire and vinegar till I got the flavor where I wanted it. I sauced the ribs, wrapped them back up and let them cook another 30 or 40 minutes. I opened them up and they looked like beef ribs are supposed to look, I guess. I let them rest and cool, then sliced one of the ribs off. It cut easily, but that didn't mean it would taste good, so I took a bite. The bite and chew were easy and the things actually tasted good. I tasted beef, a peppery note, smoke and the sauce. The fat had rendered out nicely and the ribs were very juicy and moist. I felt vindicated. I'd purged the awful memory of crappy, inedible ribs. I WON! "Suck it beef ribs!" I yelled. I took pictures of them and texted them to several people because, you know, who doesn't wanna take a gander at my beef? They were probably disinterested and I'm not normally prone to bragging at all, but it felt so good to have gotten my rematch and at least won on the scorecard if not in a knockout. I actually prefer pork ribs and may not make beef ribs that often, but now I know that I can if I want to. YOU'RE NEXT COD! I am a little short until I get paid next Friday...can somebody spare a few bucks and help me get this. I'm good for it, after all I work at a twice weekly newspaper. I'm almost sure I can cover the $3.58 shipping charge myself.
World's Largest BBQ Pit A long time ago, our state tried out something called "secession." I wasn't alive then and I'm not much of reader, but I don't think it went too well. Were there fires? It seems like I heard about fires.
Anyway, the same could be on the horizon (on a much smaller, less important scale) in terms of high school athletics in South Carolina. For a long time now, private and charter schools have been fairly dominant over their public school counterparts in the Class A and AA ranks in what are considered "club sports" or secondary sports. As long as it was a busload of teenage girls getting clobbered on a volleyball court, not many people seemed to care. That started to change in recent years, though, when Christ Church (a private school in Greenville County) became an unbeatable whopperjack juggernaut on the football field, winning four straight Class A titles and setting the state record for consecutive wins in the process. Bishop England, a private school in the lowcountry which has specialized in crushing the hopes and dreams of the aforementioned public school volleyball teams for years, won a couple of titles too in the AA ranks. St. Joe's, another Greenville private school, has won back-to-back Class A baseball crowns. Suddenly, a lot of people started caring, but they should have been all along. The numbers are very stark and demonstrate that there are some sports where public schools are totally unable to compete against private schools. In recent years, private and charter schools (which only make up seven percent of the membership) have won 67 percent of all state titles in the state's two smallest classifications and non-public schools won state titles in 12 of the 16 sanctioned SCHSL sports last school year in Class A. Non-public schools have won every single boys Class A state title ever awarded in boys soccer, all but one in girls soccer, nine out of the last 10 boys golf championships and every girls cross-country title. The top seven finishers in that sport last year (and six-of-seven this year) were non-public schools. As already mentioned, Christ Church has won state in football four straight times, while St. Joe's has the last two state baseball crowns. Private schools have 10 tennis titles in-a-row and five volleyball championships. In AA, Bishop England has won 15 consecutive volleyball crowns and a myriad of other titles. If that level of excellence was being attained only because non-public schools had athletes and coaches that outworked everyone, I would have no complaint and no one else would have grounds for one either. That isn't what's happening, though. Public schools have whatever kids live in their fixed attendance zone. Taking players from outside them can (and has) lead to fines and playoff banishment. Private schools don't have to abide by those same rules, drawing from wherever. They can also cap enrollment, which allows them to choose which classification they wish to compete in. Public schools can't do that of course, so if enrollment jumps or the enrollment of other schools drops below them, they can get pushed up a class where there will, as among the smallest in that class, struggle. Private schools can recruit and offer scholarships to make sure they always have a capable goalie, quarterback or left-handed pitcher, while public school coaches have who they have. I don't like the class warfare card, but it's a fact that private schools usually do have more money at their disposal than the small, rural schools against whom they are competing. That affords private schools the ability to put together all-star coaching staffs, full of former public school head coaches. A defensive coordinator at a small, public Class A school is often Ned the math teacher who just happened to play linebacker in high school. Nothing against Ned but... Rightfully, public Class A and AA schools have been demanding some type of relief in an effort to level the playing field and counteract the obvious advantages private schools have over them. Several plans have been floated over the years, but a committee put together specifically to study the issue sent two to the South Carolina High School League Executive Committee recently. The first involved having a separate public school championship if a non-public school won a state title. In football, for example, Christ Church defeated Bamberg-Ehrhardt (a public school) for the title earlier this school year. Under this proposal, Bamberg-Ehrhardt would have been matched up the next week against the last public school team to lose to Christ Church (that would have been McBee). It's a good plan in theory but leans toward sucky in practice. Where would the teams play, since most other title games have a central location of some kind? In sports like soccer, where three of the final four teams are often private/charter schools, how far back do you go to find public schools to play in the game. There is also the concern (particularly in contact sports like football) of adding yet another game to the slate. In the scenario laid out above, Bamberg-Ehrhardt would play in the regular title game, then play in another the next week if they lost while McBee would have been sitting at home resting during that time. Would McBee be allowed to keep practicing in anticipation that Christ Church would win, setting up their game with Bamberg-Ehrhardt? Logistically, it wouldn't work and the executive committee shot it down. The second plan would basically be a multiplier. Private/charter schools would have their enrollment tied to that of the public school whose attendance district they sit in. As an example, Greer Middle College is a Class A charter school that sits in the same district as AAA Greer High. The reasoning is that they have access to the same students, so the private/charter school should compete in the same classification as the public school with whom they are partnered. There is a limit, though, of a one classification bump. So, instead of competing in AAA with Greer, Greer Middle would be bumped up to AA. There is also a carve-out for private/charter schools with 200 or fewer students...they would not have to move up at all. So basically, private/charter schools would all have to compete one classification above their actual classification, unless they have 200 or fewer students or sit in a district with a public Class A school. The executive committee approved the plan unanimously, but it won't actually go into effect unless the legislative body (read all members schools) approves it, which is SO not happening. Class A will support it, of course, because it rids them of Christ Church, St. Joe's, Fox Creek (a charter school) and basically every other private/charter school that is a threat to win state in anything. It gives AA no relief whatsoever, though. Yes, it sends Bishop England and soon-to-be-league-member Gray Collegiate up and out of the AAA ranks, but it also imports Christ Church, St. Joe's and Fox Creek. The problem would actually be worse. AAA has no motivation to support the plan at all, because right now there are no private/charter school in that classification and they ain't inviting any to the party. AAAA, who knows...they probably don't care one way or the other. They certainly have no vested interest, so voting on a plan that drastically changes the way business is done probably isn't appealing. So the multiplier will fail, the league can say they sure did try to help Class A and AA out, then everyone can go about their business...which in Class A and AA's case means getting the every-loving brown beaten out of them by private schools. That isn't where this ends, though. The state's two smallest classifications don't just have to grab ankles, bite towels, etc. If the multiplier fails (and it will) Class A and AA can take a radical next step. They can just pull out...or, let's use the word secede. That's a better word. They can go full-on Howard Beale, looking toward Columbia and pronouncing that they're mad as hell and they aren't gonna take it anymore. This may sound far-flung, but it is a very real possibility. Smaller schools have felt for a long time that they've gotten the butt end of the deal and that the league and the two largest classifications don't care, not only in terms of the private school issue but in terms of quality of officiating and other issues, influence and voting power etc...which is frankly a valid view to hold. There are a couple of smaller schools who want the multiplier to fail because they're itching to blow the league up. I don't know how many schools would do it, but it would only take a few strategically placed ones to get the ball rolling. For instance, there are fewer and fewer Class A schools in the upstate. If Lewisville, Whitmire and McBee pulled out, they would leave teams like Great Falls and C.A. Johnson totally on an island. What Class A schools could those two be grouped into a region with? The travel distances would be exorbitant, certainly more than either could feasibly afford, and that's not even considering safety issues of having kids on buses for hours-long trips. The league could re-stack the deck entirely, pushing some current AA and AAA schools down, but how could schools like Great Falls and C.A. Johnson, which have 300 or less students as it is, compete with bigger schools. They couldn't, so the easy answer would become to bolt from the league too. There would be huge ripple effects. A new league could write its own constitution...one that wouldn't allow private or charter schools in at all. The old league would suddenly have about half its current members, which would hit them hard financially. AAA and AAAA schools would suddenly find themselves HAVING to compete with private and charter schools, because hey, they're members and AAA and AAAA didn't try to help tame them when it only put a pinch on smaller schools so HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES BIGGUN!? At one point I didn't actually believe Class A and AA schools would secede from the league, figuring it was just a negotiating ploy designed to force the league's hand. I now fully expect it to happen. The fissures are pretty deep and the mood for tearing things up is at a high. I don't know if secession will work but it's coming. Cannon fire just hit Fort Sumter boys...let's hope there aren't fires. Are you like me? Have you always considered the intrawebs a wasteland littered with cat videos and naked? As it turns out, there may be a practical use for this contraption after all, because it can apparently guide us to meat.
I consider barbecue, particularly the smoked pig available in my home state, to be the finest food one can dine upon. The people who prepare it properly are part craftsman, part chef and part crazy dudes who play with fire. The only problem with barbecue is knowing where to get the good stuff. Lots of restaurants have barbecue on the menu, but it unfortunately is often of the generic, crockpot, cafeteria, overly-sweet goopy variety. You often have to rely on reviews you've read or word-of-mouth, but if you're in area you aren't familiar with, it can be a total crapshoot...that's if you can find a barbecue joint at all. This is where the intrawebs come in. I got a press release the other day about a new online SC barbecue restaurant locator. It can provide directions, street views, phone numbers, hours of operation, reviews and more for the hundreds of barbecue restaurants in our state. You can also type in your address, select a distance you're willing to drive and it will show you every smoked meat eatery that fits your search criteria. This may rank right up their with air conditioning and pie as mankind's greatest, most useful inventions. I've gone to the site and messed around with it a little. What I've been able to gleen thus far is that I work in area that is severely underserved where barbecue is concerned. I typed in "Chester" and set a 10-mile radius...I got nothing. By upping it to 25 miles I was given ONE flippin' restaurant. I work in a meat desert. Someone please bring a mustard-based, porcine oasis here. HEP!!!!! Anyway, have a look at the website...the full press release is below. The South Carolina BBQ Trail just became easier to navigate thanks to local SC barbecue blog destination-bbq.com. The SC BBQ Locator Map is the latest enhancement to the blog that covers all things SC BBQ. In addition to the map, there are restaurant reviews, video profiles, and an events calendar tracking BBQ festivals and competitions statewide. South Carolina boasts over 270 barbecue restaurants, so there is likely more than one near you right now. The question is: Do you know where to find them and what to expect when you get there? Many concerns those searching for good barbecue may have are alleviated with one quick look at the free, interactive map. Searchers can tell what a BBQ place looks like, when it is open, and discover how long it will take to get there. Many of the restaurants have also been reviewed on the website, which is the #2 ranked blog on Urbanspoon. “The map was born out of frustration, honestly,” said James Roller, publisher. “We were in Myrtle Beach for our son Camden’s baseball tournament and decided we needed to try a new barbecue restaurant,” Roller said. The restaurant they decided to try was closed when they arrived on a Sunday afternoon and Roller and his wife, Heather, discovered there was no easy way to find another good barbecue location. “Riding down 701, Heather was searching Google and even our printed copy of the SC BBQ Trail Map, but nothing was simple,” Roller said. “We never did get any BBQ on that trip, and that’s when we decided to create the map.” The SC BBQ Locator Map at destination-bbq.com will locate every restaurant in an area you choose, show a photo of the building, provide basic contact information, reveal the operating hours, show the distance from your current location, and even give a street view look at the surroundings. When searchers find the right place eat, the map will even provide turn-by-turn directions and show the route. The map can be found here: http://www.destination-bbq.com/sc-bbq-map-locator/ When I was growing up, I was taught that there were nine planets in our solar system. Every teacher told me that, it was in every book I read on the subject, it was just an accepted fact. Nine planets. Well, a few years back, what I'd learned, and what every supposed expert agreed was settled science, suddenly wasn't. Pluto, a tiny-ass hunk of ice and rock way out yonder past Neptune, was stripped of its planetness (planethood...planetocity?) It was determined that what we'd all agreed was a planet for as long as we had stuff that let us see out that far was actually a dwarf planet or planetoid. It's the tenth most massive object circling our sun, but it doesn't meet our planet qualifications anymore. So, how did that happen? Well, you have to remember that most space stuff (a technical astronomical term) was discovered hundreds of years ago by old dudes with unkempt beards in flowing robes, who stared through crudely curved glass at the sky while swilling absinthe out of a goat's bladder. "Romicules (I imagine that is the name of the scribe this star-gazer uses), jot this down on your sheep skin parchment (brief break from conversation while both laugh at sheep skin). I have beheld a planet beyond the orbit of Neptune. I shall call it 'Pluto.' Also, I have beheld a penguin in a leisure suit standing on a soap box and playing the oboe. This absinthe is killer, by the way." That's it. Some drunk dude in the 1500s called it a planet, and heck, he knows his stuff, so we went with it. (Note: Wikipedia says Pluto wasn't discovered until 1930. You can't believe Wikipedia. Trust me on the hallucinating dude with a primitive telescope thing). Now jump forward with me a few hundred years to the 2014 edition of the SEC West...astronomy to football, it's a logical jump and a great segue-way. Anyway, football fans such as myself spent most of the year being told by experts that the SEC West was not only the greatest division in college football this year, it was perhaps the most formidable collection of teams in the history of ever. You had the fearsome Alabama Crimson Tide, the most physical team in the land coached by the finest recruiter/motivator/scheme-designer/oatmeal-creme-pie-eater of our time, Nick Saban. You had the previous year's national runner-up in Auburn, coached by some offensive super-genius. LSU is coached by a crazy person that chews cud on the sidelines (Les Miles), but his dice rolls come up sevens more often than not and he can cherry pick 25 of the nation's best prep players every year from the most fertile prep recruiting territory there is. Texas A&M is new to the league but has brought a frenetic fast-paced offense to the league and scores points in bunches. Arkansas is seen as a sleeping giant that can just mash people physically and suddenly the two Mississippi schools were worth a cuss. At one point, this one division occupied about half the spots in the top 10 of the national polls. There was hand-wringing that since they were so clearly superior to the rest of college football's unwashed, they'd beat each other up and inflict costly losses on one another that might keep them all out of the new college football playoff. Why, if any of them were to lose two games, they might deserve consideration for the finals anyway because, seriously, it was an inarguable fact that they were waist, torso, head and shoulders better than everyone else. Well, one of those teams (Alabama) did make it to the college football playoff and was beaten by an Ohio State team down to its third-string quarterback. The same Buckeyes team that lost to Virginia Tech at home and couldn't put away Indiana. Mississippi State went to the Orange Bowl and gave up 450 yards ON THE GROUND while being horse-whipped by Georgia Tech...that's the Georgia Tech that plays in the genetically inferior ACC and lost to Duke and North Carolina. Ole Miss endured a vicious "please Lord, don't let children see this" rootin' at the hands of TCU. LSU somehow lost in their bowl game to Notre Dame...a not-very-good, five-loss Notre Dame team that yielded almost 45 points a game down the stretch and lost at home to Northwestern. Auburn lost 34-31 to Wisconsin, who'd been drug 59-0 by Ohio State and their third-team quarterback when last they played. Oddly, Texas A&M and Arkansas, the two last-place finishers in the division won their bowl games. Still, for the vaunted, unbeatable except when they play each other SEC West, the post-season was an Al Roker at the White House level pants poopin'. They were 2-5. These events were not well-received by all the inane "Team SEC" folks...you know, the people whose own team may suck, but they're in the BY-GOD-SEC! It's greatness by association. "The collection of teams with which my team is affiliated is greater than the conglomeration of teams with which your team is aligned so suck it" doesn't flow with the regular cheer cadence, therefore they just holler "S-E-C." So those people, lots of apologists (read four-letter sports networks that are HUGE business partners with the SEC) and analysts that suddenly had ostrich-sized egg on their face, since they spent all season telling you how good the SEC was, needed an explanation. Well, maybe they beat each other up...as though football in any conference isn't rugged and tough, leaving one "beat up." They also had about a month off from the time the regular season ended to recover. So maybe that was it...the month off had broken their rhythm and routine. Georgia Tech, TCU, Wisconsin, Notre Dame and Ohio State had the same layoff, I think and should a lay-off matter when you are supposed to be clearly physically better in every way than everybody anyway? The narrative then turned to the fact that bowl games really don't matter, some teams don't "get up" for them and they are a terrible judge of how good a conference or division is. Here's my theory. The SEC West was never all that to begin with. Certainly, they have recent and long-term history on their side. You expect them to be good so when they get off to a rip-roaring start out-of-conference and blister the SEC East, it reinforces what you've always, basically, known to be true. Last season or 10 seasons ago doesn't have squat to do with the here-and-now, though. If everyone would take their SEC groupie/cash cow glasses off and really analyze things, they'd see the SEC West underwent a bit of a downgrade this year...just like the one astronomers gave poor old Pluto. Much was made of the SEC West going 28-0 out of conference. That's certainly impressive...right up until you see who those 28 wins came against. Alabama struggled to beat a West Virginia team that went 7-6, Florida Atlantic, Southern Mississippi and Western Carolina. Mississippi State took out Southern Mississippi, the now-defunct UAB Blazers, South Alabama and UT-Martin. Ole Miss did nut up and play Boise State and a Memphis team that turned out to be OK, but also Louisiana-Lafayette and PC. Auburn played a real live football team in Kansas State and struggled with them badly, but won. They also had Samford, Louisiana Tech and San Jose State on the slate. LSU had a real out-of-conference game against Wisconsin and pulled it out of the fire late, then played Sam Houston State, UL-Monroe and New Mexico State. Texas A&M's cream puff buffet included Lamar, Rice, SMU and UL-Monroe. Arkansas played a bad Texas Tech team, Nicholls State, Northern Illinois and the aforementioned, no-longer-in existence UAB Blazers. Lots of teams schedule weak non-conference competition, but the SEC West double-fisted it on patsies. By my count, they played four teams from the power five conferences. That, in and of itself, didn't mean the SEC West was bad, but it also didn't demonstrate that they were any good. They beat bad teams, FCS teams and directional schools. How about that 11-4 record against the SEC East? Well, the East was basically a train wreck, next to a dumpster fire on the way to see a tag-team goat roping this year. Two teams...TWO (Georgia and Missouri), from the East had over six wins. Two others were 6-6 (Florida was 6-5) in the regular season, but those numbers were inflated by some of the same weak out-of-conference scheduling as was present in the West. So, throw out the 11-4 total record and let's see how the West did against the two really good SEC East teams. Umm, they mostly didn't play them. The conference schedule is out of the individual school's control, of course, but Mississippi State, Ole Miss and LSU didn't play either of them. Alabama beat Missouri in the SEC title game. Auburn lost to Georgia, Texas A&M lost to Missouri and Arkansas was beaten by Georgia and Missouri. That makes the West an anemic 1-4 against the East's best two teams. Wait Romicules, that might just be a moon instead of a planet...or a dead fly on my telescope! Outgoing talent may have played the biggest role in the SEC West's erosion. In the 2014 NFL Draft, the SEC had 49 players drafted, seven more than the next closest conference (the ACC) and 15 more than the next (PAC-12). Eleven of those 49 went in the first round and the conference was hit by 28 players leaving school early. LSU alone had seven. That's a huge loss of talent that teams were expecting to get back. How different would LSU have looked in 2014 with Jeremy Hill and Alfred Blue in the backfield and Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry at receiver? Like the flippin' NFL All-Rookie Team is what they woulda looked like. When you recruit the best players you are bringing guys on campus who may not stay four years. That's the risk you take and sometimes it bites you. Who left is just as important. When it came to the most important position on the field, quarterback, almost the entire SEC was in straits that were at least scary and foreboding if not dire. South Carolina lost ultimate winner and gamer Connor Shaw, Alabama lost multi-time national champ and Heisman finalist A.J. McCarron, Georgia lost it's all-time leading passer Aaron Murray and LSU lost big-armed Zach Mettenberger. What teams rolled out there this year included Blake Sims at Alabama, who was a first-year starter who was supposed to be beaten out by a transfer. Texas A&M had a first-time starter in underclassman Ken Hill who started out like a house on fire then looked like a tire fire by the end of the year and got benched along the way. LSU started sophomore Anthony Jennings who hit almost 49 percent of his throws. Georgia turned to Hutson Mason, whose numbers were pretty good but was a first-time full-season starter and was more caretaker than playmaker. Teams that did have quarterbacks back might not have wanted them. Nick Marshall ran Auburn's option-y offense very well, but wasn't even a quarterback until last year and has serious limitations in the passing game. Missouri had short, inaccurate, turnover prone Maty Mauk, Ole Miss had tall, turnover prone Bo Wallace, Florida had Jeff Driskel who got benched...for a guy that completed less than half his passes. The two did combine for a crowd-pleasing 17 picks. Really look at the SEC's starting quarterbacks (The West's especially) and find me a guy that will start in the NFL. I'll wait...I'll keep waiting... If you take everything into account, there were a lot of indications that the SEC West was overrated from the jump this year and never proved their alleged greatness on the field at any point. That isn't to say it was bad...it certainly wasn't. The SEC is still probably the best conference in the country (though others have definitely caught up this year) and the West a strong division. However, it wasn't equipped to defeat mini-Ditkas, large military battalions or the NFC North as some folks would have had you believe. You can decide if that comes from rabid, blind fandom, a bias, a business agreement or leaning on the way things have normally played out on the field. Whatever. Before we canonize any division like fans and supposed experts did the SEC West this year, though, we should probably pause and look at the facts that are sitting right in front of us...and maybe lay off the absinthe. |
TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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