National Signing Day 2012: Why SEC Will Reign Supreme Once Again
The landscape of college football appears to be changing, at least on the surface. Big name coaches like Urban Meyer have taken their talents to new places.
But at the end of the day, all recruiting roads lead to the SEC, and as a result, all the power remains with the conference that has claimed the last six BCS championships.
Just looking at the recruiting rankings for schools right now, with just over one week to go until National Signing Day, the SEC is just having fun with the rest of the country.
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According to Rivals.com, eight of the top 20 recruiting classes belong to the SEC, including newcomer Texas A&M. For the record, the Pac-12 is second with four.
As much as the game changes, and recruiting gets more competitive, there is no challenge for the SEC anymore.
It's no accident that the conference has won the last six national championships.
All the best players go to these schools because they know they are going to get national exposure, preparation for the NFL and compete for BCS berths year after year after year.
These schools aren't just compiling three-star recruits to give them depth. They are getting impact talent like no other conference in the country.
Looking at the Rivals.com individual player rankings, there have been 79 recruits in the top 100 who have announced where they intend to play college football. Of that group, 24 have committed to SEC schools.
Just over 30 percent of the best high school players in the country are going to this juggernaut conference. How do other schools expect to compete?
Those numbers are only going to grow when players are actually allowed to sign their letters of intent, which is a scary thought.
To this point, they haven't been able to. That's not to say that the SEC is going to roll over every other conference and win all of the BCS championships for all of eternity, but it's going to take a truly special team with a great coaching staff to dethrone the SEC.
It might sound boring because this has been the case for most of the last decade, but the SEC is running circles around the rest of the country in recruiting again this year.
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