The SEC is obviously the big fish and it will not go away. But, with the rise of the Pac that happened after a bunch of Pac schools went on a hiring spree a couple of years ago, I wonder what the future holds. OSU under Urban is legit, as will be PSU under Franklin and Michigan under Harbaugh. Similarly, Texas and OU will only stay so down for so long. FSU will likely drop off next year, but they're clearly a very strong program right now. Throw in schools like Baylor and TCU, which will be good for at least the immediate future, and Clemson and GT, which seem to be good again, and the handful of schools that are good in any given year and I don't see the SEC having crazy numbers like packing in 7 schools in the top 10 or 10 in the top 15 (or whatever it was), like they were a year or two ago.

The SEC is still very good, and very much the best, but I think that there will be way more equality over the next decade (or at least 5 or so years) than there was in the past.

Strength of each conference will ebb and flow but I wouldn't count the SEC out after one slightly down year.

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(01-04-2015 03:57 PM)Georgia_Power_Company Wrote:  Strength of each conference will ebb and flow but I wouldn't count the SEC out after one slightly down year.

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Agreed. I'm looking at it more in terms of what the other conferences are doing. The B1G seems to have finally woken up and the Pac woke up a couple of years ago. Even the ACC is waking up. UNC is starting to invest in assistant coaches, Pitt is putting money into the program, and GT, Clemson, and FSU are all strong. The Big XII is in a similar boat. The schools playing for their lives (Baylor and TCU) are good and the established players (Texas and OU) won't be down much longer.

Does anyone think the SEC will be less committed or more after our horrible turn out this bowl season? Besides its almost full on recruiting season.

The Harbaugh hire at Mich will be an interesting test. Mich has decided to go out literally get the best coach that money can buy. There should be no reason Mich could fail now. So what if Harbaugh fails? What does the B10 do then?

SEC still pays more

Ohio State is Gordon Gee and Urban Meyer is a perfect fit. There could be a shift in power but that will be in Michigan and that will be at the behest of the B1G.

SEC fans,

Nobody is saying that the SEC is garbage or that it flat out sucks. All people are saying is that the nation is catching up to the SEC. Parity is a beautiful thing and makes for some amazing unpredictable action.

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Meyer @ OSU, Franklin @ PSU, and now Harbaugh @ Michigan is a great thing for northern football. For northern kids to play at their "Dream School" the local talent needs to step their games up or those three coaches are going to go out of state to get the talent needed for them to win championships. That B1G East is going to be a strong division for years to come with Mich State strongly in the mix and schools like Rutgers and Maryland capable of making a solid run every now and then. Whether or not it goes on an SEC West type run remains to be seen.

(01-08-2015 11:58 PM)Dasville Wrote:  Ohio State is Gordon Gee and Urban Meyer is a perfect fit. There could be a shift in power but that will be in Michigan and that will be at the behest of the B1G.

Isn't Gordon Gee now at WVU ?

(01-09-2015 06:21 AM)CardFan1 Wrote:  

(01-08-2015 11:58 PM)Dasville Wrote:  Ohio State is Gordon Gee and Urban Meyer is a perfect fit. There could be a shift in power but that will be in Michigan and that will be at the behest of the B1G.

Isn't Gordon Gee now at WVU ?

Yes

I think the SEC will be one of the top conferences most years; some years there will be a gap between the SEC and the others, while others it won't be so clear. I think the other leagues will ebb and flow year to year with some good years, some bad.

(01-09-2015 09:13 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(01-09-2015 06:21 AM)CardFan1 Wrote:  

(01-08-2015 11:58 PM)Dasville Wrote:  Ohio State is Gordon Gee and Urban Meyer is a perfect fit. There could be a shift in power but that will be in Michigan and that will be at the behest of the B1G.

Isn't Gordon Gee now at WVU ?

Yes

This is the electronic age, guys. With teleconferencing and camera monitoring, he can still run Ohio State from Morgantown - maybe even better than he could in person.

The SEC's recent run of dominance is historically unprecedented by any conference since the Ivies in the 19-teens.

The Eastern Indies (Notre Dame, Penn State, Miami) combined to win 7 in 10 years from 1982-91.
The Big 8 won 4 in 6 years from 1970-75.
The SEC won 7 in 9 years from 1957-65.
The Big 10 won 5 in a row from 1932-1936.
The PAC won 5 in 9 years from 1920-28.

There's really no fundamental reason for the SEC's recent run to continue. Their dominance was based on the combination of 1) a revenue and exposure advantage due to having a championship game, and 2) great coaching hires by LSU, Alabama, and Florida. Also, Auburn had a magical run.

The championship game is no longer unique to the SEC, and a string of great coaching hires is, by definition, temporary. The SEC will continue to be a good conference, but they will regress to their historical norm soon enough.

I think Stanford might of been the best team a couple years back. A playoff would have proven it .

BCS this year Alabama beats FSU.
Because they pass the eye test.

(01-09-2015 12:03 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The SEC's recent run of dominance is historically unprecedented by any conference since the Ivies in the 19-teens.

The Eastern Indies (Notre Dame, Penn State, Miami) combined to win 7 in 10 years from 1982-91.
The Big 8 won 4 in 6 years from 1970-75.
The SEC won 7 in 9 years from 1957-65.
The Big 10 won 5 in a row from 1932-1936.
The PAC won 5 in 9 years from 1920-28.

There's really no fundamental reason for the SEC's recent run to continue. Their dominance was based on the combination of 1) a revenue and exposure advantage due to having a championship game, and 2) great coaching hires by LSU, Alabama, and Florida. Also, Auburn had a magical run.

The championship game is no longer unique to the SEC, and a string of great coaching hires is, by definition, temporary. The SEC will continue to be a good conference, but they will regress to their historical norm soon enough.

One other fact that helps the SEC. Bigger, faster stronger D- and O-linemen in their backyards. More so than any other region in America; hands down. I think they continue to dominate. There are a lot folks, including me, that want to believe they are down. They are not really.

I don't see how the SEC can continue to dominate when they haven't been dominant this year or last.

Last year was just a bad year for the SEC in BCS bowls that could be dismissed as a fluke, but this year the narrative is that the SEC West was wildly overrated. We'll see how that affects pre-season rankings that typically guarantee that SEC teams get to feed off each other to boost their rankings because so many teams start out ranked highly.

Interesting thing about the Pac rise is that it started right after the failed raid on the Big 12. 6 months before the attempted raid, the Pac went 2-5 in bowl games and many Big 12 fans were appalled that the lesser conference would attempt to raid the much more successful Big 12. A common insult against the Pac was "USC and the 9 dwarves" and USC was in a slump.

6 months after the failed raid, Oregon lost in the BCS championship game by 3 points and Stanford blew out VT in the Orange Bowl. Stanford and Oregon making the BCS consistently the next couple of years really increased their reputations and the reputation of the PAC even as standard bearer USC was slammed by sanctions.

Coincidentally, the decline of Texas started a few months after they killed the Pac-16 deal when 3-0 #7 Texas lost to 1-2 unranked UCLA at home in front of a record 101k crowd.

(01-09-2015 01:40 PM)TomThumb Wrote:  I don't see how the SEC can continue to dominate when they haven't been dominant this year or last.

Last year was just a bad year for the SEC in BCS bowls that could be dismissed as a fluke, but this year the narrative is that the SEC West was wildly overrated. We'll see how that affects pre-season rankings that typically guarantee that SEC teams get to feed off each other to boost their rankings because so many teams start out ranked highly.

Interesting thing about the Pac rise is that it started right after the failed raid on the Big 12. 6 months before the attempted raid, the Pac went 2-5 in bowl games and many Big 12 fans were appalled that the lesser conference would attempt to raid the much more successful Big 12. A common insult against the Pac was "USC and the 9 dwarves" and USC was in a slump.

6 months after the failed raid, Oregon lost in the BCS championship game by 3 points and Stanford blew out VT in the Orange Bowl. Stanford and Oregon making the BCS consistently the next couple of years really increased their reputations and the reputation of the PAC even as standard bearer USC was slammed by sanctions.

Coincidentally, the decline of Texas started a few months after they killed the Pac-16 deal when 3-0 #7 Texas lost to 1-2 unranked UCLA at home in front of a record 101k crowd.

It takes a while for perception to catch up to reality. This year, the SEC benefited greatly from the perception that Ole Miss' and Mississippi State's rise was simply an addition to the depth of the SEC. Eventually, the reality set in that they weren't really that much better, the rest of the SEC West had simply fallen back. The fact that the SEC East was also relatively weak, leading to dominance by the west in inter-division play, exaggerated the perception.

Power in college football is cyclical, and always has been. And except for just a handful of teams, there is more parity than ever.

What's interesting to me is that I think it's not really just the SEC- but rather football in the SE part of the country. 12 of the 16 national champions in the BCS era were won by SEC+Florida St+Miami. From 1981-1997- the 16 years before that- it was 9 of 16(including Georgia Tech and Clemson) So last 32 years- 21 years won by southeastern team(and 24/35 if you go back that far). A Big part of that is just population growth. The southeast has grown rapidly since the 70's.

(01-09-2015 04:00 PM)stever20 Wrote:  What's interesting to me is that I think it's not really just the SEC- but rather football in the SE part of the country. 12 of the 16 national champions in the BCS era were won by SEC+Florida St+Miami. From 1981-1997- the 16 years before that- it was 9 of 16(including Georgia Tech and Clemson) So last 32 years- 21 years won by southeastern team(and 24/35 if you go back that far). A Big part of that is just population growth. The southeast has grown rapidly since the 70's.

For the most part, the biggest difference between all those teams you mention and the rest is DL play. All the others have talented, fast skill position guys and some have decent OL's. What separates is the talented, fast DL players on the Southern teams. Think of the Miami and FSU DL's in their run. Mostly all great units.

Instead of population growth, the reason likely stems more from the foods served in the Southeast. Obesity is much greater in the South than elsewhere in the country. Well, some of those guys that ate a ton of fried food can still run. Staples wrote a story for SI a few years back discussing the same thing. Look it up.

(01-09-2015 05:26 PM)wrcwolf Wrote:  

(01-09-2015 04:00 PM)stever20 Wrote:  What's interesting to me is that I think it's not really just the SEC- but rather football in the SE part of the country. 12 of the 16 national champions in the BCS era were won by SEC+Florida St+Miami. From 1981-1997- the 16 years before that- it was 9 of 16(including Georgia Tech and Clemson) So last 32 years- 21 years won by southeastern team(and 24/35 if you go back that far). A Big part of that is just population growth. The southeast has grown rapidly since the 70's.

For the most part, the biggest difference between all those teams you mention and the rest is DL play. All the others have talented, fast skill position guys and some have decent OL's. What separates is the talented, fast DL players on the Southern teams. Think of the Miami and FSU DL's in their run. Mostly all great units.

Instead of population growth, the reason likely stems more from the foods served in the Southeast. Obesity is much greater in the South than elsewhere in the country. Well, some of those guys that ate a ton of fried food can still run. Staples wrote a story for SI a few years back discussing the same thing. Look it up.

what is interesting about this point is how the spread offenses that we're starting to see appear to be kryptonite. Definitely seems to be for Nick Saban.