SEC is Down This Year???

I have noticed that a lot of people think that the SEC is down this year so I went back and looked at the winning percentage for the SEC going back to 2003.

2008 = .604
2007 = .619
2006 = .619
2005 = .564
2004 = .550
2003 = .558

2002 = .577
2001 = .584
2000 = .567

As you can see, it is only very slightly down from the past two years, however, '03 - '05 is when it was really down.

EDIT: I just added 2002 - 2000.
Interesting. The SEC is NOT down this year. In fact, it's the second highest it's been in 9 seasons!

I think college football is down this year.

I agree with averagedawg. When you've got one conference powerhouse missing the postseason for only the second time since 1987 in Tennessee and another in Auburn who'll miss a bowl for the first time under Tuberville unless they upset the #1 team in the country, your conference is down. Can you imagine if, in the Big 12, Oklahoma and Texas were both on the verge of being out of the bowls?

College football is terrible this year. Devoid of the great stories (Kansas, Missouri, Hawai'i, Georgia, LSU's two overtime losses, constantly shuffling #1s and #2s, etc) of last year, this season has just been puh-thetic. Name a team in the Big 10 that's worth anything at all. Name a team in the ACC. Big East? No? Not even South Florida this year? Hell, the best story in the country is Oregon State, and no one's going to cover that mess!

When it's painful to watch most football in the NCAA's \"most dominant conference\" (the SEC) and it's downright impossible to watch it in four of the other BCS conferences -- the ACC, Big East, Big 10 and Pac-10 are just incredibly bad -- college football is having a down year. You know what I'm excited about this week? I'll be honest. I'm excited about Central Michigan vs. Ball State, the game which decides the MAC West. My hand to God. THAT'S IT.

If flurgh was a dirty word used to convey disgust, I'd say \"Flurgh the 2008 college football season! Flurgh it right to Harbunk!\"

Maybe you’re right. I was thinking that better talent and better coaching was the cause for some parity in the conference. For the conference’s sake, I hope that Alabama does not look ahead and takes care of Auburn and the Gators do the same against the ‘Noles. That way the winner of the SEC will represent in the MNC game. You have to admit that clearly the best two SEC teams are playing for the SEC championship this year. That did not happen last year and the year before was iffy as well.
Last year, I would say the best team in the SEC was Georgia but things didn’t work out so the best team was not on the field. I have no doubt that the winner of the SEC this year is the best team in the SEC. No questions asked.

GatorinGA wrote:

Maybe you’re right. I was thinking that better talent and better coaching was the cause for some parity in the conference.

You'd be right if everybody was beating up on everybody. You are right about the parity at the bottom of the conference, what with Auburn beating Mississippi State, who beat Vanderbilt, who beat Auburn. Plus Arkansas beating Auburn. You'd have an even better argument if we were murdering everyone outside of the conference. But Tennessee lost to UCLA and Wyoming, and barely survived Northern Illinois. Vanderbilt lost to Duke. To Duke! Mississippi State lost to Georgia Tech and Louisiana Tech. Auburn lost to West Virginia. Ole Miss, who beat your Florida Gators, also lost to Wake Forest. The SEC's signature out-of-conference win is Georgia's defeat of Arizona State.

Wait, why is Auburn included in a \"bottom-of-the-conference\" discussion? Because the conference is that far down. When your Eastern Division title has only ever been won by three teams and one of those three teams is 3-7 including a home loss to Wyoming, when your most recently undefeated team is on the verge of missing the postseason for the first time in its head coach's tenure, when your most recent national champion is allowing 50 points in two losses, allowing 24 points to MSU and SCarolina in two wins, and is making Auburn's offense look decent, when one of your other three Eastern powers whose defense is world-renowned for hunkering down is allowing 38 points in three straight games and four overall, and when a three-time Western Division champ escapes by one point from UL-Monroe and by four points from Western Illinois, your conference is in HUGE trouble. Huge trouble. Something is fundamentally wrong with the SEC this year, something that combines coaching with recruiting with conditioning with just damned bad luck.

Of course, the same thing seems to be happening to the rest of the country this year, with the exception of four teams in the Big 12 South and three teams in the Mountain West. So we shouldn't bemoan ourselves too much. But the fact remains that 2004 this ain't. Hell, this ain't even 2005. No matter what we're bragging on year in and year out, the SEC is badly down. Period.