Sunday, August 22, 2010

SEC Football: The Gold Standard

The New York Daily News has it spot on. SEC Football is king, has been for years, and there are no real competitors for the throne.

People talk about Mark Richt being on the hot seat. Everyone is on the hot seat in the SEC. Fans have the trigger finger on their laptops, ready to fire off flaming hot missives at fellow fans or lob complaints in the general direction of their school's administration. "Fire (insert name of coach) now.com" registrations go up whenever a coach loses his first couple of games.

Athletic directors pay huge salaries, schools build huge stadiums, and advertisers commit huge amounts of money, all in a bid to harness the passion of the SEC's huge fan-base.

And it works. Fans show up. Buy tickets. We're engaged. Alumni send checks.

It works on the field, too. Our best is the best of the best (shucks, our also-rans would be the darlings of most other conferences). Four straight BCS championships.

And not just the fact of the BCS victories. It's the way the SEC has won. Over the last 4 years, the SEC has beaten their BCS championship game opponents by a combined 67 points. That's an average of two touchdowns and a field goal per contest.

The games aren't even interesting in the 4th quarter. The margin of victory would no doubt be higher if the SEC coaches did not graciously put in the third-stringers and walk-ons. Good thing for our opponents that Steve Spurrier's teams aren't any good.

It's getting to the point that the BCS championship game should be canceled and the SEC championship substituted in its place.

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