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.
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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