The Urban Legend: SEC Football Elitists Propagate Illusion of Superiority

When you surf the web for the latest in college football news, it doesn’t take long to stumble upon a fresh dropping of SEC propaganda.

The latest offering was contributed by Jeff Fowler of the Orlando Sentinel. His article claims that Florida’s Urban Meyer has surpassed USC’s Pete Carroll in sideline prowess and crowns him the king of the gridiron.

Yes, these elitists have now moved from self-proclaimed superiority over teams and conferences to include a competition between coaches.

According to Fowler, Carroll is still riding the wave of 2004's success, using the coach’s inability to escape the “inferior” Pac-10 in the following seasons as an example of his drop in the power ranks.

He uses championships and the recent NFL draft to support the strength of the SEC, but the logic is flawed and treads that familiar path of smoke and mirrors.

Stamping the Pac-10 as “inferior” is the more popular form of degradation, and the most common error. The word is spoken easily, but the theory is more difficult to support.

SEC and Pac-10 programs have collided 17 times in this BCS era, with the Pac currently holding a 10-7 lead in the series. That’s hardly evidence of inferiority. Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and South Carolina failed to play a Pac-10 program in this period, and joining them is Florida, who hasn’t played a scheduled game west of the Mississippi in the 10 years of the BCS.

Contrary to Florida’s appetite for home cooking, Carroll’s troops have claimed victories on the battlefields of Auburn, Arkansas, Nebraska, Virginia, and in biannual visits to Notre Dame.

More deception is displayed in the use of NFL draft numbers. This Sentinel staff member supposedly provides further proof of conference superiority with this assertion:

“The SEC produces the best talent every year, and the best coaches transfer that talent to the NFL draft. Which league had the most players drafted last week? The SEC.”

Most post-draft articles will tell of the 37 players drafted from the Southeastern Conference, which leads all others in total. What’s excluded from the articles and analysis is the 27 SEC players that went undrafted. Only the Big Ten had a higher percentage of players turned away by the NFL.

The SEC has four more programs than the Big East, and two more than the Pac-10, so obviously the SEC class size was larger. But the percentage of those draft eligible players drawing NFL interest was fewer, with 42 percent of the class rejected.

2009 NFL DRAFT SELECTIONS FROM BCS CONFERENCES

Conference	Class size	Drafted	Undrafted	%
Big East	39	27	12	69.23
Pac-10	48	32	16	66.67
ACC	53	33	20	62.26
Big 12	45	28	17	62.22
SEC	64	37	27	57.81
Big Ten	53	28	25	52.83

Conference supremists claim USC should have never lost to Oregon State—and out west, we believe Florida should have never lost to Houston Nutt and Ole Miss. But in each case, it happens. That’s why the games are played.

The last time Pete Carroll looked across a field and saw Houston Nutt as the head coach, the scoreboard read Trojans 50, Razorbacks 14. This followed the 70-17 paddling Nutt received in Los Angeles.

If I used Fowler’s draft theory, as ridiculous as it may be, seven of seven draft eligible players were selected from Oregon State. Only four of seven were selected from Ole Miss. According to his own logic, Oregon State is superior to Mississippi.

In fact, in terms of players drafted by the NFL and percentages, the Beavers would be superior to every team on Florida's 2008 schedule, equaling South Carolina in number and topping the Gators themselves. Are we still willing to play this numbers game?

The author also points to Urban Meyer's ability to “bounce back” after the upset loss to Ole Miss, insinuating that Carroll lacked the same. The Trojans, like the Gators, followed their only defeat of the season by winning the remainder of their games.

How is that a failure to “bounce back” for one coach, but the ability to do so for another? The only difference is that one program was invited to play in the National Championship game, and the other, also possessing just one loss, didn’t.

Field coaches have no control over that situation. The opinions of fashion show judges do.

The SEC has won four of the last six BCS championship games. In doing so, Florida and LSU both defeated Oklahoma and Big Ten champion Ohio State. Pete Carroll’s national championships have also come through Oklahoma and a Big Ten champ.

In his college coaching tenure, Carroll has never lost to a Big Ten program, defeating all six opponents, including three conference champions—yet he hasn’t a single crystal ball to emphasize his dominance over that particular league. The SEC has twice earned the BCS championship trophy with consecutive victories over an opponent from that same conference.

Boise State and West Virginia also defeated Oklahoma in BCS bowl games, yet have no national reward to display in their trophy cases to signify the achievement.

For years, the public preaching has insisted that the SEC has the toughest road to the championship game. If anyone is actually listening to the sermon, please explain to Utah and the Mountain West how their road is paved more easily.

It takes four quarters of football to win a championship game. It takes at least 42 quarters of subjective opinion to get you there.

I’m not a proponent of conference wars, because without a significant amount of interaction between the powers, any conclusion is nothing more than a guess.

But I will come to the defense of others when one proclaims themselves the “God” of the sport without conclusive evidence to support their stance. Numbers can be skewed to an advantage, while also posing a disadvantage with full figures revealed.

Today’s game is a show of parity, and nothing more, which is the story most numbers will tell. To roll with the words of media representatives, whose primary intentions are to cash in on this highly marketable product, is to surround yourself with the smoke and mirrors of profiting magicians.

Just think, when Meyer was first hired by Florida in 2005, the arrogance of the Southeastern fanbase, and sales pitches of network analysts, insisted that he and his offensive system would fail in the “conference above all others.” Instead, Meyer, like Les Miles and Nick Saban before him, walked in and easily took over.

Has Urban Meyer surpassed Carroll to become the face of college football? That remains open for debate. The faces I see representing the sport aren’t walking the playing surface.

If we have to identify the sport with faces, my choice would be minted dead presidents surrounded by numerical figures in four corners. The continual avoidance by the governing bodies to establish and implement a legitimate method for crowning champions proves money to be the only superior particle of this game.

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