Virginia Tech Smashes Tennessee: Is The SEC's Dominance Overrated?

You have heard all too many College Football experts tell you how inferior the ACC is when compared to the SEC, but watching the Chick-fil-A Bowl last night it sure did not seem that way.  Now before you talk about how Virginia Tech was the higher ranked team and they were supposed to win, we all know that.  But it's the way in which Virginia Tech dominated Tennessee for most of the game that was impressive.

The experts will tell you that the SEC is a tougher brand of football, and the ACC plays a soft, more finesse style of football.  These experts are largely basing this off the fact that the SEC plays great in conference games against each other, but for the most part they are just a bit above average when they play out of conference games against other BCS schools.

From 1998-2008 the SEC was 45-36 against the ACC (.556 win percentage). I would hardly call that dominating when the two conferences match up.  The SEC did go 5-2 this season against the ACC to slightly improve its winning percentage, but a 7-3 win by South Carolina over North Carolina State, and Virginia Tech played Alabama tougher than Florida this season.  I wouldn't call any of those performances dominant. 

On this night Tennessee looked inferior to Virginia Tech, and coming into the game Tennessee had the SEC's fourth-ranked defense which isn't bad in a "power" conference.  Virginia Tech made them look almost pedestrian, this is the same defense that held Alabama to 12 points and held Florida to 23 points.  The Hokies easily put up 37 points on the Vols defense, and with a former NFL defensive coordinator running that defense made it all the bit more surprising.

I am not saying that the ACC conference is the cream of the crop over the SEC or anything of that nature, I am simply stating that SEC "dominance" is highly overrated and you can see when they play teams from other BCS conferences the games are fairly competitive.  Sure if Florida played Duke I would expect the game to be a blowout in Florida's favor, there are always mismatches.

The true gauge is the middle of the conference, if you take out the two best teams and two worst teams in each conference the SEC isn't going to be much better than the other BCS conferences.  The league just isn't as tough as everyone makes it out to be, your conference opponents know you best that's why the games seem tougher.  That is a true fact about every conference, and USC is a perfect example of that fact with their losses to inferior conference opponents seemingly every season.

Yes those in conference games are great, watching Aurburn and Alabama go at it is fantastic.  But I can name several ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten in conference games that were just as exciting.  The SEC gets the benefit of the doubt at every turn it seems, and I don't think it's really warranted.  Yes Florida is/was dominant for the past few years, and Alabama is poised to win a national title this season.  But after those two teams it's quite a mediocre conference with every other team boasting at least three losses.

The reason it matters stems from the fact that the pre-season college football rankings always put SEC teams in favorable positions, and it gives them a leg up on BCS bids and opportunities to play in the championship game.  It plays itself out when you have several one-loss teams vying for a spot in the BCS title game, and more often than not the benefit of the doubt is given to the SEC schools.

This comes from the perception that schools like Auburn, Tennessee, Georgia and Arkansas are much better teams than the average school from other conferences.  That just isn't true any more of the programs listed; none of them have been all that good for the past several years except Georgia.

You commonly hear sportscasters say I would take a one-loss SEC school over an undefeated school from another conference.  I don't understand the logic in that statement, SEC schools have been ducking tough out of conference games for years.  Florida canceled their annual game with Miami years ago, and it has been rumored that several SEC schools turned down offers from Boise State to play them.

I am sure fans of the SEC will find reasons to validate the SEC as being deserving of the consideration they are given by pollsters every year.  If the conference is so dominant why duck tough out of conference games to play teams like Charleston Southern and Memphis?  I don't think the gap between the SEC and other conferences is as wide as some would like you to think.  Virginia Tech's performance against Tennessee is further proof of that fact.