This post is about as much fun as crawling naked over broken glass

Well, I've been out for a few days on a project, and therefore, I have not blogged. I work, therefore I don't blog ... ?

Before I go all Decartesque on a bunch of people wanting to read about sports stuff, I think I'll stop right there.

Of course, the big news of this week was the beat-down Gardner-Webb laid on my Kentucky Wildcats. Now, when I started this blog, I promised it wouldn't be UK-centric, and I think I have lived up to that standard reasonably well. But this is big news, and believe me, I don't enjoy blogging about a mid-major with an enrollment of maybe 5000 students driving their rag-tag bus 6 hours northwest to Rupp Arena, and stomping the snot out of one of the most storied basketball programs in history. Every word I type here feels like I am punching the keyboard with severe arthritis in my fingers. It hurts that much.

I cannot tell you how ... chagrined I was watching this game. It told a story of a coach so committed to his system, he wasn't willing to change it when faced with the ultimate counter and absolute disaster. The Princeton (or Pete Caril) offense is what Gardner-Webb used to embarrass Kentucky. Any coach (or competent observer) will tell you that a pressure man-to-man defense is the single most vulnerable defense to the Caril offense. The most basic (but probably most important) reason is, offensive players know where they are going, and defenders don't. Gillispie was unwilling to change the defense, and G-W continued to be successful against the Cats.

Midway through the second half, when the game was really in jeopardy, Gillispie finally went to a conventional man-to-man, instructing the team to stay in between the man they were guarding and the basket. Kentucky went on a run, but by that point, G-W believed they could win the game, and began making big shots. A fatigued Wildcat team began missing assignments and the rest, as they say, is history.

For my part, I am as unhappy as you would expect facing a constant drumbeat of schadenfreude from teams that Kentucky has defeated year in and year out, or just general UK haters, of which there are many. Maybe not as many as Duke, but more than enough to make for a long, tiresome week of snarky comments and insults. Frankly, I don't have anything too negative to say about that -- we made our bed, and now we have to sleep in it, even if it is full of fleas.

So, let's see what the non-Kentucky SEC blogs are saying about this affair:

Charles Rich, writing for Fanhouse, thinks that Gillispie has a lot of work to do:

The Runnin' Bulldogs led the entire game. They outshot, outrebounded and outplayed the Wildcats. Gillispie's disapproval of the team's defensive effort in the exhibitions and first game appears quite warranted. Gardner-Webb was able to run backdoor cuts almost at will for easy layups and higher percentage shots. This was not a case of a team that got incredibly hot from behind the 3-point line. Gardner-Webb shot over 56% on 2-point shots.

What can I say? The guy is right, right, right and, oh yeah, right.

Eight in the Box (not exactly a basketball kind of blog) wonders, "Who is Gardner-Webb?" Heh. I wish I knew. What I do know is that they can play a little ball over there.

SEC Hoops is like me ... What the ...?:

Are you kidding me?!? In what was college basketball’s biggest upset in some time, Gardner-Webb absolutely dominated #15 Kentucky on their own floor tonight with a 84-68 win. Kentucky allowed GW to shoot 53.1% from the floor while managing only a 35.5% effort of their own, and was outrebounded 36-28. GW jumped out to a 14-0 lead early, and never trailed.

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. But he clearly didn't see the game. Ramel Bradley impressed nobody. He didn't get credit for half the turnovers he actually made. Must be some kind of New York City bias in the official scoring.

The Hog Blogger has an interesting take:

Perhaps this is karma for essentially costing Stan Heath his job? It’s possible.

Eh? Oh, I get it -- Gillispie turned down Arkansas, and ... Ok, whatever. Maybe he's right. God knows, I am searching here.

Then, I have to put up with this crap from Orange and Blue Hue:

Ummmm . . . mandate may be a stong term . . . how about rephrasing this as ” . . . was hired as the 21st coach in Kentucky History with an optimistic request to restore basketball’s winningest program to previous heights.” instead??? While the football program is ascending to heights heretofore unseen in the school’s history, the basketball programs precipitous descent doesn’t look quite complete. Apparently the empty seats in Rupp arena were not just due to student apathy but perhaps instead of the foresight of fans not yet blinded by years of delusion. They just wanted to spare themselves the sight of such embarrassment and hoping to return later in the season when the team starts playing better.

Oh, kiss my entire ass, Keltic Gator. Just keep in mind, when we whack your butts twice this year, you are going to hear "Can't even beat a team that Gardner-Webb defeated." Karma, KG ... karma.

That's enough. I really don't want to read anymore. Yeah, I am embarrassed, just like the rest of the Big Blue Nation, and I'll have to put up with crap on this one for two more weeks at least.

Nobody ever said being a fan was always fun ...

More Anit-SEC Cluelessness

Once again, a sportswriter comes forth not to praise the SEC, but to bury it. The media just can't seem to get enough of such pieces, promising to deliver an argument that proves once and for all the SEC is just average this year, then embarrassing themselves by making an argument a child could defeat with little effort.

The latest is from Rick Bozich one of my hometown newspaper columnists for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Rick isn't a bad guy, and knows basketball pretty well. But when it comes to football, he is a little more ... challenged. And since a good bit of his audience is Louisville fans, he knows he has a built-in admiring audience whenever he deigns to smack down Kentucky or the SEC at the expense of Louisville or the Big East.

As has become the norm, Rick wants to point to the SEC's record against out of conference foes to prove his case. Quoth he:

Here is the mighty SEC's record in those 10 games against teams from other BCS leagues:

Five wins.

Five losses.

...

I don't have a math degree from Ole Miss, but I'd guess that would qualify as average. I wasn't on the debate team at Auburn, but I'm prepared to argue there isn't one great league this season. There are a number of very good leagues.

Well, Rick, math really has nothing to do with it, but debate ... well, let me just respectfully suggest that you wouldn't have made the second string of the debate team at Auburn. One of the first things you learn in debate are all about logical fallacies, and the one you have thrown out here is known as a deductive fallacy.

Let's look at the six "BCS" conferences -- ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10, and Big East, at the time of Bozich's writing (before the week 10 games):

1. Big 12 - 3-13 -- 3 BCS wins, 7 BCS losses with 4 losses against non BCS foes and 1 loss against FCS
2. Big 10 - 8-8 -- 8 wins (4 against Notre Dame) 4 losses to BCS (one to Duke), 2 losses to non BCS and 2 losses to FCS.
3. Pac 10 - 8-8 -- 8 Wins (1 against Notre Dame) 5 losses to BCS (one to ND), 3 losses to non BCS
4. ACC - 6-12 -- 6 wins (2 wins against Notre Dame), 6 losses to BCS, 6 losses to non-BCS
5. SEC - 5-5 -- 5 wins, 5 losses to BCS, no non-BCS or FCS losses.
6. Big East - 7-8 -- 7 wins, 7 losses to BCS, 1 non-BCS loss
   

Disclaimer -- I may have made an error or two, I did this pretty fast. If anyone spots one, please let me know and I'll be glad to eat my words if the error changes my calculus, or strongly argues against my conclusions.

Every other conference other than the SEC has lost to Non-BCS foes. Four of the Big 10's OOC BCS wins have come against the incredibly weak Notre Dame, and one loss providing the only victory for Duke this year, plus 2 FCS losses.

The only conference that even has an argument, using this measure, is the Pac 10, which is 8-8, but 3 of its 8 losses come from non-BCS schools, one win and one loss against the aforementioned Notre Dame.

Of course, a disproportionate number of the bad losses come from the cellar-dwellers in the respective conferences. But notice that the SEC has virtually no "bad" losses (at least, for the purposes of this analysis). I also don't meant to imply that non-BCS losses are always bad -- the aren't -- but the tendency is for non-BCS teams to be a bit weaker overall than BCS teams, taken together. Of course, any conference that has losses to FCS teams deserves a bit of ridicule (I'm looking at you, Big 10 and Big 12).

I guess one could argue that the SEC benefited from a weaker out of conference schedule than the other BCS conferences, and they may have a point there -- the SEC played significantly fewer BCS games than any other conference, and no less than 10 SEC schools scheduled FCS opponents (83%). Compare that to 7 for the ACC (58%), 8 for the Big 10 (67%), 6 for the Big East (75%), 2 for the Pac 10 (20%) and 8 for the Big 12 (67%). However, that argument certainly won't help anybody but the Pac 10, since 2 conferences lost games against FCS opponents and the other two have losing records against OOC competition.

Bozich continues thus:

Would somebody please explain how 5-5 translates to seven spots in the top 24 when no other league has more than four? And a really solid league like the Pac-10 has three?

I know the answer: Because it's the mighty SEC, the league with the largest crowds, highest-ranked recruits, highest-paid coaches, the most laudatory TV coverage -- and, typically, the most schools on NCAA probation. Oops.

Let's leave aside his appeal to moral superiority and look at his main question, which is why does the SEC have seven top 25 teams, and the Pac 10 only have 3?

Well, who else from the Pac 10 would you put in there? There are only two other teams with a decent argument for inclusion: UCLA, who has provided 1-8 Notre Dame with its only victory, and lost to Utah (who lost to 2-7 UNLV) and Pac-10 cellar dweller Washington State? UCLA's best win is against Cal, the only other team that could be considered for inclusion. And what of Cal? They have lost 3 games in a row, sometimes called a "slump" -- a sure formula to get run out of the polls -- just ask South Carolina.

And the SEC? Well, no reasonable person could argue against the inclusion of LSU, Georgia, and Alabama -- they all have 2 or less losses and the worst loss among them is Alabama at Florida State. Auburn has been hot lately and played LSU to within an inch of victory at Death Valley, so they can't really get tossed. Florida would seem to be a bit overrated, but their worst loss has been to Auburn in the Swamp, and they have beaten 3 top 50 teams against UCLA's 2 -- can't see how anyone would prefer UCLA or Oregon State (who's best win has also been over Cal) over the Gators.

So that leaves South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, who seem to be swapping in and out on the fringes. There are maybe three or four teams among the other major conferences with an argument -- just not a very convincing one, apparently.

So, Mr. Bozich, it seems that your "deeper look" really wasn't all that deep after all. You make a lot of snarky comments, but when you get right down to it, a reasonable man can't find any conference better than the SEC. The best you can do is argue that the Pac 10 may be just as good. Is it a runaway? Not from the Pac 10, but I would argue nobody else is even within shouting distance.

I have a suggestion for you, Rick -- before you try this again, why don't you actually look a little deeper. And while you're at it, read this.

Holy Gamecock, Batman! We just ran over a Visor!

Of course, by Batman, I refer to Darren McFadden, the Heisman favorite at the beginning of the year who ran into some kind of roadblock along the way called 0-3 in the SEC. Felix Jones plays the part of Robin, his trusty sidekick.

I suppose we all knew it would happen, but Darth Visor and his Cocktroopers were on the receiving end of the archetype, the very definition of "running roughshod" over a defense.

South Carolina has been exposed against the run several times this year, giving up 290 yards to LSU over the ground, and 150+ and 170+ to Kentucky and Tennessee. But surrendering 541 rushing yards to a team is, quite simply, gobsmacking. Batman and Robin ran amok to the tune of 323 and 163 yards respectively. Felix Jones had a mind-blowing 13+ yard average on 12 attempts!

As you can imagine, the South Carolina bloggers are ... less than pleased, especially since this loss is their third in a row. But I have to admit, I was well and truly shocked when I read this post from Garnet and Black Attack:

It won't be easy for me to write what I'm about to write.

But the time has come.

I have rarely, if ever, used this space (or Cock & Fire) to call for someone's dismissal. I pride myself on that. For the most part, I don't find it particularly constructive, and I think it can divide fan bases if it's done too often.

But I can't stay quiet any longer.

The continued employment of the South Carolina defensive staff needs to be seriously re-evaluated.

Coming from Brandon, this constitutes an out-and-out mutiny. Notice that he is not directing his ire at the legendary OBC, but at the defensive staff (and rightfully so, in my view). When a team is running wild like that, you might be better off to take your chances with single coverage and hope Casey Dick throws some bad balls, which he is certainly wont to do. G&BA notes some other occasions when the current regime's run defense has ... ahem ... sucked out loud.

Flounder at Leftover Hot Dog is also aghast, and laments the inevitable, unwelcome shuffle to the land of the unranked:

Geez.....Going into the game USC knew they had to stop McFadden and the run....well I guess that memo was not given to the team b/c Arkansas ran the ball with ease. So say hello 3 game losing streak and goodbye Top 25.

The best laid plans of mice and visors often go awry. The Cool Chicken compares Lou Holtz and Spurrier in their third year, and the OBC doesn't come out sitting pretty. He wonders if USC is on the right track, and for my money, I don't blame him. Back to the drawing board.

From the Arkansas side, Razorback Expats is at a loss for superlatives. The Hawg Blawg is equally amazed, pointing out that both McFadden and Jones have now crossed the 1000 yard mark for the year - with three games left. The Hog Blogger is also left searching for adjectives:

What’s there to even say about that? Unreal? Other-worldly? In a video game? Any doubt that Darren McFadden wasn’t by far the best player in college football is most certainly removed now, and all of a sudden, he’s right back in the thick of the Heisman race.

As Tom Cruise said in Minority Report "There is ... no question." That's right, HB. No question at all.

Week 10 in review -- Part 1

Yesterday we saw the best of SEC teams and the worst of them. It was a kind of watershed weekend in the season where some teams who were looking defeated rose up powerfully, and others who had been dominant seemed to waver.

Of course, the big game was the LSU/Alabama game, which was as utterly schizophrenic and with as many twists and turns as any Hollywood movie writer could ever concoct. LSU looked totally dominant in most of the first half, then went on an insane penalty binge which saw Alabama completely take over the momentum and actually take the lead at the half.

The third quarter was a hard-fought push with both teams scoring on long drives. But the 4th quarter belonged to LSU, as it has almost every single time this season against every determined foe. Once again, Les Miles was fearless in his calls, even while his players were flawed in their execution, and arguably, their sportsmanship, racking up an otherworldly 130 yards in penalties, many on personal foul penalties that included roughing the passer, intentional facemasking, and and angry lineman ripping off his helmet after being called for an illegal shift.

Still, anyone who isn't impressed with a team who overcame an astonishing number of penalties and 3 interceptions to win in quite possibly the most hostile environment in the SEC is either dead, or an Ohio State fan. Of course, Dan Wetzel has been impressed with LSU all season, but really gets the significance of this win:

LSU is 8-1, back in the top two in the BCS, and incredibly dangerous. If it gets a title chance, then this is the most fearsome team in the country because if it can ever play minus the mistakes it is virtually unbeatable.

People who have watched the SEC have known this all year, just as many of us doubted that any team, even powerful LSU, could manage to go through an SEC as tough as this years' unscathed. Maybe we wouldn't have picked Kentucky to undo their perfect season, but frankly, there just isn't a lot separating most of the SEC teams this year. The middle of the league is very crowded, and very competitive.

The Alabama bloggers, understandably, have little to say after a tough loss. The Tide Druid offers a bit of humor to assuage the injured pride of the Alabama faithful.

Understandably, the LSU faithful are jubilant. New Orleans Love lists five reasons why LSU came away the victor, including this one sure to arouse a bit of ire in the Saban supporters:

5. NICK SABAN WAS OUTCOACHED: Les has got Balls of steel. And can we coach better than Saban? Well, he beat him. Why? Because Saban played a straight game. Saban saw in the first half that his team was not physical enough for the Tigers, not mano-o-mano, but he didn't go into his bag of tricks. Les, on the other hand, reached down into his bag and had quarterback Matt Flynn catch a nifty pass from the receiver Doucet. Even late in the game, knowing he didn't have a running game, he did no counters, no misdirections. It cost him. Big time. He got outcoached.

Richard Pittman of Geaux Tuscaloosa echoes my comments earlier in this post:

I don't want to get too caught up in criticism. Fact is, we went on the road in the SEC to a very hostile environment and we came away with a win. In a year like this, any SEC game you win should be satisfying. Heck, any SEC win should be satisfying, even if it's not on the road. This is a season in which Ole Miss took Florida AND Alabama to the wire, and they haven't actually won a conference game.

Obviously, I agree.

It's Saturday, and time for the big one!

LSU at Alabama. The biggest game of the year so far in the SEC. It has serious repercussions for both teams. Alabama loses, and their chances for winning the SEC west become much smaller. LSU loses, and they probably lose whatever chance they still have of playing for the "national championship".

Newspaper Hack at Journalism is for Rockstars looks at some of the smack-talk going on in the LSU section of the Internet. I liked this one:

“When it comes to Bama Football, this is how I feel about them: I would raze their cities to the ground, sell their women and children into slavery, sow their fields with salt, remove them from the history books and bring death to their program for all time. Other than that, they’re ok by me.”(1$ to Panzer from tigerbait.com) — Benji313

Pretty funny. The Tide Druid fully "gets" the magnitude of this game, both schedule-wise and emotionally because of the Nick Saban issue. He also offerers several reasons why Alabama wins and loses the game. OutsideTheSidelines at Roll 'Bama Roll takes a detailed look at the game from almost every angle.

On the LSU side, Richard Pittman admits to being caught up in the game hype than the actual contest, but corrects that in this entry:

Of course, games in the SEC are often won on the lines, and I think we have a fairly significant advantage here, especially when we're on defense. The Bama offensive line played its best game last week without two of its starters, but frankly Tennessee's defense is not as good as usual this year, and they were unable to exploit the problems on the Bama offensive line (or the Bama energy and emotion for that matter). If those guys continue to be out, I think we'll be able to exploit their absence a little more.

This is what I believe as well. LSU has a stronger line on both sides of the football than Alabama, and they have had time to rest and recover for this football game. When you have two rested teams coming into a game, the team with the stronger lines almost always gets the win.

Purple Reign at And The Valley Shook looks at several pundits' predictions for this game, and the overwhelming consensus is that LSU wins this game. Finally, New Orleans Love tells us why this game matters:

The refs may have to get in between the coaches in this one.

LSU may go for it on 4-and-8 at their 40 in this one.

It's that intense.

Saturday's game is LSU vs. Alabama, but everyone knows it's even more about Nick Saban and Les Miles. No matter what the coaches say, it's Nicklaus vs. Lester. The LSU faithful will hate Les if he loses to Alabama, especially with the LSU West crown at stake (even though bettors well know 'Bama will lose to Auburn) Alas, it is what it is.

This game matters for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that LSU losing to Alabama would do more to drive Les Miles into the waiting arms of Michigan than anything else. He may very well go anyway, but the crap he'll have to listen to if he loses this one will make that decision a lot easier.

For Saban's part, he pretty much gets a pass on this game unless LSU embarrasses Alabama in their house. That would get the Bama fans clacking their tongues and wringing their hands, but it won't generate much "Far Nick" sympathy -- they paid too much for him to run him off his first season.

Overall the pressure is far higher on Miles than Saban, and it will be interesting to see how this washes out. I am watching both coaches tell everybody right now that this game isn't about them. Don't you believe it.

Week 10: Big Games

The way I see it, there are three big games this week that could have a serious impact on how the SEC turns out: Vanderbilt at Florida, South Carolina at Arkansas, and of course, LSU at Alabama. Now, let's have a look at how the SEC bloggers see these games.

The Vanderbilt Tailgate has hope for the visit to the Swamp, and lists five things that Vandy has to do to be successful. According to my records, Vanderbilt has not won a game against Florida at Florida since before Kennedy was president.

Vanderbilt Sports Line and Saurian Sagacity are doing the blogswap thing. From Saurian Sagacity's post at VSL:

Vandy is a team the Gators should beat. But one thing is for sure, if Vandy wins on Saturday they will have proven that they do indeed belong in the league and that the South Carolina game wasn’t a fluke. I hate to see it, but we are starting to see some parity in the SEC, with teams like Mississippi State and Vandy that can no longer be taken for granted. Vandy, is trying to prove that it belongs with the adults and I for one am hoping the Gators can send the Commodores back to kids table.

It truly is frightening (and a revelation to the Great Powers of the SEC) that this league is more competitive this year than perhaps any time it its history. We are used to seeing Florida, Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, LSU and Tennessee run roughshod over the lower half of the league except every three or four years when one of the lower half rises up to smite the mighty. Will this be that kind of year, or is this a trend for the future?

For their part, VSL puts this post on the Saurian Sagacity blog. VSL predicts that the game will come down to special teams and turnovers:

Like last year, I predict this game will come down to two factors: special teams and turnovers. Vandy special teams have improved significantly over last year, but the kickoff and punt defenses still rank at the bottom of Division 1-A. That doesn't bode well with Brandon James taking back punts for Florida. Both teams have quality kick returners and I think DJ Moore is due to take one to the house.

If this prediction turns out to be true, the Gators will be in trouble, because it will likely mean that the Commodores have a shot at them. I'm not ready to believe in that, especially in the Swamp, but the Gators have lost one game there this year to a good defensive club.

Garnet and Black Attack has a blogswap with Razorback Expats, an Arkansas blog. Instead of swapping posts, this is just a Q&A session from both sides. I found this an interesting question from G&BA, and answer:

What are your feelings about Arkansas being in the SEC?

Actually, they're kind of mixed. I'm sure the accounting books would emphatically validate the move to the SEC. Still, there's something about being in the conference that leaves me a little cold. We've been in the SEC for 15 years, and you can't really point to any program as Arkansas' true rival. I miss how fired up I used to get for games against Texas and Texas A&M. Part of me thinks the Razorbacks would be a better fit in the Big 12, where several of their former SWC foes now reside. But that's emotion talking. Whether that would be as good financially for Arkansas, I have not the slightest idea.

It's kind of funny that Arkansas has no football rival in this league, or hasn't been able to generate one. I would've thought that LSU or Tennessee would have been a natural rivalry, but both those schools have long-established football rivalries within this league, and as we know, rivalries take many years to develop and some event has to occur to create some genuine enmity between fan bases. As far as I know, that hasn't happened with Arkansas yet.

But remember, Arkansas does have a basketball rival in the SEC -- Kentucky. That one has not been too bitter lately, as Kentucky has owned the basketball Hogs for several years. But with former UK player John Pelphrey now at the helm of the Razorbacks, we could see the old days of the early 1990's renewed.

For their part, Razorback Expats had this question, with the answer from Garnet and Black Attack:

9. You’re made czar of college football for one day: Do you put South Carolina in the SEC or the ACC?

I was born and raised in Alabama and started off as an Auburn fan. It wasn’t until I moved to South Carolina and then went to college there that I became a Gamecock — so I’ve only been familiar with the team as part of the SEC, and always loved it being that way. If it were my choice, my team would remain in the best conference in the country.

There were some fans, back when the ACC was expanding, who wanted to return. So some older fans would probably make a different choice than I would.

Its interesting that both of these schools were imports into the SEC from other conferences, and many people still remember those days, although frankly, I had mostly forgotten them. Neither South Carolina nor Arkansas have any natural football rival in the conference, nor have they been able to really develop one since expansion. You would think that Spurrier's presence would have fostered a USC-Florida rivalry, but I guess until USC starts beating Florida with a bit more regularity, that won't have a chance to grow, either.

I'll look at the LSU at Alabama game in a separate post.

Debunking the myths of the myth debunkers

It seems like every day, one guy or the other out there in the MSM (that's "Mainstream media for all you Penn State fans out there ) wants to debunk the theory that the SEC has the best football conference in the land. 99.9% of the time, they are self-debunking. This one today is no exception, but I thought I would make an example of it just for kicks.

Comes now a certain Michael Cunningham, ostensibly a sportswriter from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He, like so many before him, thinks that he can fashion some kind of argument supporting the idea that the SEC is really no better than anyone else. So here is his attempt at building a case:

Let's limit it to the SEC's six most successful programs: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU and Tennessee. That keeps the likes of Mississippi State and Vanderbilt from dragging down the SEC's good name.

Yeah, why not? Never mind that the bottom feeders in the SEC have beaten some of the top teams. Let's pretend they collectively don't exist. It won't matter.

And let's not just look at this season but the past six, from 2002 to now. The sample is robust enough to account for down years, probation and Mike Shula.

Fair enough. Who cares? I'm going to skip a couple of irrelevant points, you can read the article at the link above and determine if I was wrong to omit them, and why. Moving on to his coup de grâce:

Even the SEC can't avoid tough bowl games, and it has done pretty well there with a 16-10 record since the 2002 postseason. That includes a 12-8 record in bowl games against ranked opponents and national championships from Florida and LSU.

Those titles tended to mask the sometimes-middling success of the SEC as a whole. That 12-8 record against ranked postseason opponents is good but not the domination expected from a league so casually deemed clearly better than the rest.

So here is the case he is making -- that a good but not overwhelming SEC record over ranked teams in bowls means that the SEC is really not much if any better than any other conference. He also makes the point that Kentucky beat LSU, MSU beat Kentucky, and West Virgina whipped up on MSU. So that just goes to reinforce his assertion that LSU really isn't all that.

Well. Rather than go into a long point-by-point rebuttal, I'm just going to make one, and it falls at the feet of the very first paragraph I quoted above. Five of the six SEC teams he cites have at least one national championship since 1980, and all of them have recently won SEC championships. Of the other conferences, only the Big 12 and ACC come close with 4, and not one of the other conferences can point to as many teams that have won their respective conference championships recently as the SEC can.

My point is that none of the other conferences have six teams in them that belong in the same zip code with the six SEC teams he uses for comparison. To adjust for conference size, is there even one who has a 50% representation of teams that tough? The answer is -- not even close. Even the Big Twelve, arguably the SEC's nearest competitor, doesn't. The ACC? Please. One of their counting members in my analysis (Miami) wasn't even a member when they won their last championship.

In other words, his argument is hoist on the very petard he hopes to hang the SEC on. I don't even have to make the case that the bottom half of the SEC is tougher than the bottom half of any other conference in the nation. As an appeals court would say, I don't even need to reach that argument, because his case fails on the first one.