Conference Depth

by TheUnknownStuntman on Sep 24, 2007 2:14 PM EDT

Note the new ESPN Power 16. It features 4 SEC teams, which is not unusual for our league. What is unusual is that 2 of the 4 are Kentucky and South Carolina.

This has always been the hallmark of this conference, depth. Even with Tennessee and Auburn looking significantly down from their usual form, and with UGA and Bama looking good but not great thusfar--this conference can boast 1/4 of the consensus top 16 in the country.

That's what makes this conference such a meatgrinder.

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Lou Holtz demonstrated . . .

. . . during "GameDay Final" that he is nuts ("77 crazy men" and all that business), but he made one good point; namely, that the more interesting question isn't which is the best team in the S.E.C., it's which is the worst team in the S.E.C.

Is it Ole Miss? The Rebels almost upset Florida.

Is it Vanderbilt? The Commodores skunked Ole Miss, beat Georgia last year and Tennessee the year before that, and nearly beat Florida in each of the last two seasons.

Is it Mississippi State? The Bulldogs are 3-1, with a win over Auburn on the Plains.

It obviously isn't Kentucky (the Wildcats are 4-0, with wins over Louisville and over Arkansas in the Natural State) or South Carolina (the Gamecocks are 3-1, with a road win over Georgia and a respectable showing in Baton Rouge).

The fact that serious arguments could be mounted for the proposition that such talented squads as Arkansas, Auburn, and Tennessee nevertheless are among the weakest in the S.E.C. attests to the strength of the league.

The debate over which conference is the best is overdone, but this much must be said on behalf of the S.E.C.: there is not a Baylor, a Duke, or a Stanford in the bunch. (I mean that athletically, not academically.)

It is arguable whether our best team is better than another league's best team, but our worst team almost assuredly is better than any other conference's worst team.

by T Kyle King on Sep 24, 2007 6:12 PM EDT reply actions

Might be overselling the SEC there a little bit...

Everyone (ie, Ole Miss) has games where they play over their head (see also: Stanford leading Oregon 31-24 at halftime).

There was a great article a couple of weeks ago that asked a sports bookie in Vegas to create hypothetical lines for matchups between teams in the SEC and Pac-10. The lines came out as follows:

USC over LSU by 3.
Florida over Cal by 3½.
Oregon over Alabama by 3.
South Carolina over Washington by 8½.
Arizona State over Georgia by 1.
Tennessee over Washington State by 7.
UCLA over Vanderbilt by 7.
Oregon State over Mississippi State by 7.
Auburn over Arizona by 4.
Ole Miss, Stanford is a pick-'em.

I don't really think you could argue with any of these.

by CAJason80 on Sep 24, 2007 11:51 PM EDT up reply actions

I don't take betting lines seriously

Point spreads do not have, and are not intended to have, predictive value. Their whole and sole purpose is to generate 50 per cent disagreement.

That is, lines are designed to get half of those placing wagers to bet on one team and the other half to bet on the other team. This ensures that the house will win by evenly distributing the risk of being wrong, which was the entire reason the point spread was invented in the first place: if it only involved picking winners straight-up, everyone would bet on Florida to beat Western Kentucky and break the bank.

If a line is set too high or too low, the spread will shift in order to establish equilibrium.

Those lines are not intended to forecast the actual outcomes of those games, which is good, because I believe most of those lines are nutty . . . which means the lines were set well, since you consider them reasonable and I do not, which means the desired 50/50 split has been achieved.

Make no mistake about it, though; point spreads are designed to generate disagreement. There is nothing a bookie loves to hear more than one sports fan saying, "I don't really think you could argue with any of these" to another sports fan who asserts just as vehemently, "I don't really think you could argue for any of these."

Ole Miss played with Florida for four quarters in a game the Gators never succeeded in putting out of reach. Stanford hung with Oregon for a half before being blown out by the Ducks. That doesn't mean the Cardinal are on a par with the Rebels; that means Stanford is equivalent to New Mexico State (which trailed Auburn by a point at the half) or The Citadel (which was tied with Wisconsin at the half). (It also probably means that Oregon was looking ahead to California next weekend.)

by T Kyle King on Sep 25, 2007 12:37 AM EDT up reply actions

Didn't mean to start a conference strength debate

I think the Pac10/SEC comparisons are applicable here. Both conferences have a lot of depth in the sense that certain teams rise up every 4 or 5 years to make a good little run before sliding back into mediocrity.

The classic Pac10 example is Washington State. They cycle up every few years and make legitimate runs at the Rose Bowl. In the SEC, the Mississippi schools, South Carolina, and Arkansas follow a similar pattern--with various degrees of peak performance.

I think the issue nationally is that since the SEC's big boys have been consistently good in recent years, our conference is praised for this. Meanwhile, the second, third, and fourth most storied programs of the Pac10, Washington, UCLA, and Arizona State have been mired in mediocrity over the same time period. So the national perception of a strong Oregon State or similar Pac10 team is that the conference must be weak to have a dormant make a decent run.

When Pac10 fan screams about their lack of respect nationally, I think it is 75% attributable to the fact that their historically good programs have been really weak over the past few years. That is a shame because there is some solid football being played on the left coast.

by TheUnknownStuntman on Sep 25, 2007 10:24 AM EDT reply actions

TheUnknownStuntman does....

...have a point there about PAC 10 teams. although this wasn't supposed to be a diary preaching the supremacy of the SEC, or the weakness of the nation's other conferences, i think such discussions are inevitable when talking about strength of conference. i think that alot of the perceived weakness of the Pac 10 seems to come from the media, which loves to create David and Golaith like situations, and by fans who often create such talk in order to boost the bruised egos of their respective teams who struggle through league play, and/or justify those USC-bashers out there(Auburn). by no means is the Pac 10 a weak conference (if les miles can spell pac 10, then maybe i will give credence to his arguements), and indeed many of the PAC 10's teams argueably have a much richer football history than many of our own heralded SEC schools. Recent successes often times erase the not-so-memorable past, as we see in the case of the Florida Gators, whose devoutees have no prior recollection of football (or heck, any sport) seasons prior to 1990. was it not also during the sixties and seventies that alabama won this conference nearly every other year and would then subsequetly lose its bowl game to some Big Televen or PAC 10 squad. rich in tradition, and on the rise as far as talent is concerned, the PAC 10 has been, is, and will be a force to be reckoned with and college football will be much better for it. so here's to a revised bowl season, a championship game for each BCS conferences, and a playoff system that includes the top two teams from each conference. GO DAWGS!!!

by Dawgb1 on Sep 25, 2007 4:47 PM EDT reply actions