Friday SEC blog piñata

Well, here we are again -- another Friday. Soon my wife will be home, and I'll be mixing the martini an cosmopolitan. Ahhh, sweet -- the Friday Night Cocktail!

But before that, I have a hodgepodge of goodies to bring you -- a Friday grab-bag if you will. A sports blog piñata.

First of all, a reader made me aware of this blog at The Legend of Cecilio Guante, which basically explains what we all know to be true -- the SEC is the best football conference in the land. Here is the money graf:

I hear a lot of hype about Ohio State/Michigan this week. Now you know what every game feels like in the SEC. Let me run down a list of SEC teams that have spent some time in the Top 25 this year; LSU, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Auburn, South Carolina and Arkansas. That'd be 9 out of our 12 teams. Only one SEC team is below .500. Maybe they should call us the All-star Team Conference. And by the way, has Les Miles officially changed his name to Titanium Stones yet?

The author goes on to talk about the women, the angst, the glory of the SEC. Great read. Don't miss it.

Florida fans are getting silly over the Georgia-Kentucky game. Saurian Sagacity starts us off:

First of all let me say it was nothing personal in beating you on October 20th, purely business. I’m sure you understand. I hope you will also understand if we ask a favor of you. As far as favors go, it is one that is mutually beneficial, so we are certain you won’t mind.

Please beat Georgia.

Heh. You'd think these guys had something on the line, here, like maybe a trip to Atlanta, wouldn't you? Mlmintampa of Alligator Army also has a missive, and he offers ... things ... in return!

If it makes you feel better, by beating Georgia and Tennessee, you will keep out teams that lost by at least 21 points this season. (UGA at UT; UT at Bama and UF.) You're doing a public service! But, what else is in it for you? After discussions with our close personal friends in the UF Athletic Association, we have devised a very appealing prize package should you win out and Florida wins the SEC East.

1. We will not finish ahead of you in basketball this season.

2. Free Gatorade for a year.

3. A lovely fruit basket from the orange groves on the UF campus.

Tempting. Does this count as a bribe? All this Gator love is making me feel all funny inside. Even Orange and Blue Hue gets in on the act:

Hey, Kentucky… we love y’all.

Y’hear?

All we need for you to do is to win your next two games. You do that, we go to Atlanta to (hopefully) ruin LSU’s national title hopes.

I mean, we're talkin' some serious reptilian amoré here.

Let's see -- what else do we have? Roll 'Bama Roll thinks that clarity has finally arrived in the race for the national championship. The Big 12 champion is apparently effectively guaranteed a spot in the national championship game, according to his reasoning (which looks sound to me). The big question, at this point, seems to be "who else will be in there?"

Clarity of a sort, I suppose.

A lot is on the line for Tennessee against Vanderbilt, also. Who Ya With thinks that this week could be the difference in the season for the 'Dores:

The commodores travel to the Evil Empire this weekend to take on the Great Pumpkin (Fat Phil) and the Vols. If the defense can show up like they did in Columbia, and Spuds can play the QB position as well as he did last week against UK, this game could be won. There is nothing I would love more than to see 105,000 disappointed Vols fans walking out of that stadium. How much money would Fulmer have to donate to UT to feel comfortable then?

Oh, the 'Dores and the Vols do indeed despise each other. They love to see the other cry.

Meanwhile, Jon at Fulmer's Belly decides to try a little poor-mouthing to get the Vols a win:

First off, we lost to a freaking Cal team at a game that I personally attended. A Cal team that has lost 20 games since beating the hapless Vols and their non-existant defense and special teams play. DeSean Jackson looked like a damn Heisman candidate after te UT game, and has been pretty craptacular afterwards. What does that say about our team? It says we suck. Hard.

Heh. For a team that has a chance to win the East, and the only team that doesn't need help, that is some poor-mouthing indeed. Joel at Rocky Top Talk is wondering WTF:

So what's the deal? Why can't we be negative when our team really needs us? Here's the thing: they're pretty good and getting better. The future looks bright indeed, and the Vols, even this season, are perfectly positioned to win out and represent the East in the SEC Championship. There, they'll be pitted against LSU, and the media will give them no chance against the Tigers, which is, of course, right where we want to be. Forget the pessimism. I love this team.

So we have a little plus and a little minus. It's been that kind of season for the Vols.

We may not know who will go to Atlanta from the East this weekend, but we will have a somewhat better idea of who is not going, guaranteed. The Gators need a Kentucky win or they stay home. Georgia, the converse. And Tennessee? Well, they just need to win two games back to back and they can book their flights.

Fun times.

Dawgs and Cats, and Croom calls the Hogs!

Today was the beginning of the fall signing period for basketball. There were a few interesting things happening.

First of all, Scotty Hopson, one of the best players in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and a very highly touted recruit who has verbally committed to Mississippi State University, did not sign his LOI today. Kyle Veazey of the Clarion-Ledger got in touch with Hopson about it.

What makes this somewhat interesting is that Chris Singleton, who was being heavily recruited by Kentucky and Florida State, chose the graveyard of high school talent over the Wildcats. Suddenly, a scholarship is open at Kentucky. What does this all mean? Nothing, probably, but you never know.

In other bad news for Kentucky, Jodie Meeks, expected to be a leading contributor this year, is out 4-6 weeks with a stress fracture to his groin area. Is it just me, or do the words "fracture" and "groin area" put together like that cause you to cringe a bit? Yikes.

But of course, we are still in the throes of football season, so I think I'll return to that for now.

Kentucky and Georgia got a big game a-happenin' down in Athens this weekend. Kyle King of Dawg Sports is a bit nervous about it, too:

5) UGA 41, UK 31.This game really, really worries me. I just don't think we match up well against their offense. I think our best bet is to establish the run early and keep Woodson and his receivers from establishing a rhythm. If we can get a decent lead, then Knowshon and Thomas can step in to eat up clock. But unlike Auburn's plodding attack, this Kentucky team can put 21 on the board in a hurry. It will be a barn burner. I think the last thing we want is a shootout. As potent as our offense has been of late, there's no reason to go blow for blow with a team who's standard attack is to throw as many punches as possible.

The big thing with Kentucky is not letting them get you in a shootout. If you do that, your chances go down. Kentucky hasn't stopped anyone on defense this year, not even Vanderbilt and South Carolina. But if you let the Cats get in a rhythm, they can put up so many points so fast that only Florida can outscore them. The Dawgs definitely can't. But as Kyle points out, the antidote to André Woodson is to live in the Kentucky backfield, and that is most certainly possible for Georgia.

Dawgs of the World Unite dispatches a submarine on a northern run to espy the goings on in Lexington, but runs into trouble:

Unfortunately, due to a lack of submarine-navigable waters in the area around Lexington, we had to divert the recon team to a mission on behalf of DOTWU's closest blog ally. The crew is currently probing the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, seeking a potential embarkment point for the DFF IV Maritime Alcohol Consumption Expeditionary Force (DFFIVMACEF). So, this week's report will be based on information pilfered from the internets and our own wild conjecture.

In Kentucky, John Clay reports that Mark Richt wants a "redout", and reports on other strangeness in the activities of the Georgia coach lately. Mark is beginning to scare me. I think he is going all Spurrier on us, and I don't like it. Not one bit.

Not much more coming out the UK folks about the game with Georgia yet. Too much roundball news over there.

Mississippi State could pick up their seventh win this year at Arkansas on Saturday. The question is, which Arkansas team will show up? The one that ran roughshod over the Gamecocks, or the one that was dismissed rudely by Tennessee last weekend? Terry Wood of WholeHogSports is wondering as well:

Throughout the season, Arkansas has had one of the most productive offenses in the Southeastern Conference thanks to the Razorbacks' rushing attack.

But twice in the last month, the Hogs have been held to a near standstill by Auburn and Tennessee.

Meanwhile, Gregg Ellis says that for Croom, it's all about respect:

Sylvester Croom just wants respect. Period. And right now, he doesn't feel his team is getting its due.

To begin with, he was irritated the oddsmakers listed Alabama as the favorite this past weekend, even though MSU defeated the Tide last year in Tuscaloosa and was coming off an impressive win at Kentucky two weeks ago.

Croom is definitely getting the job done this year, much like Kentucky did last year. If he gets to 7 or 8 games, MSU could get a very nice bowl indeed, especially having beaten as many ranked teams as they have.

Operator? Could you help me make this call ... ?

I have noticed a lot of anger lately over officiating, and now we are hearing gripes from nearly every major conference.

References (in no particular order):

1. Fanhouse -- Memo to the ACC commissioner.
2. Fanhouse -- Down with Geriatric Replay Officials [Isn't this age discrimination? -- ed.]
3. CSTV -- ACC keeps High-Tech Eye on Official's Performance
4. Sunday Morning Quarterback -- They All Fall Down ... Until the Two-Minute Drill
5. Lexington Herald-Leader -- Seven is So Much Better Than Six
6. Fanhouse -- Mike Leach is Not Afraid of Fines
7. Kermit the Blog -- If Only I Knew Your Name, Mr. Line Judge
8. Fanhouse -- Pac 10 Officials Outdo Themselves
9. Sunday Morning Quarterback -- Ask Mike Leach
10. CSTV -- Red Raiders Coach Leach Stands Behind Comments On Officiating
11. ESPN -- Tranghese punishes ref who made call; won't elaborate on penalty
12. Fanhouse -- YouTubesDay: Pac Ten Referee Incompetence
13. Fanhouse -- YouTubesDay: Refs Muff Huskies-Beavers

Seems like some people are not real happy about the officiating these days, and I have seen enough questionable calls this year to make me wonder what we have to do to get it right. More and more calls are either falling under the rubric of "unreviewable", or just plain, unalterable incompetence, that fans must be wondering where it all ends.

For me, I think everything aught to be subject to challenge. If there is a play where the call is blown, there has to be some way to salvage the situation. The same rules would apply, but all the things that are "off limits" should be challengable except non-called penalties. How many hits out of bounds have we seen this year, for instance, when the replay showed clearly that the player was not out of bounds? How many roughing the passer calls have we seen where it wasn't just marginal, but obviously wrong? How many interference calls have we seen where it wasn't Those are major penalties, yet they can't be reviewed by rule. And what about the "oops-I-didn't-mean-it" fair catch against Louisville? Is it not ridiculous that was unreviewable?

Any personal foul penalty aught to be subject to review, but only on challenge. Unlike the current system where the challenge only costs a time-out if the ruling on the field is not reversed, challenging a penalty aught to cost a timeout no matter what the outcome. That way, the trade-off will sometimes lead coaches to accept the judgment of the officials.

Some way must be found to eliminate the impact these badly missed calls have on the game, at least as much as possible. It is an epidemic, and the conferences are not doing enough to ensure they don't happen.

The Crooming of Alabama, or, Is Mark Richt the new Evil Genius?

Alright, so what the hell?

First of all, what the hell is with Alabama? You bring in a coach. You pay him 4 million dollars a year. You watch as he gets Croomed.

Alabama fans must feel like this is something they could have had for far less than about $100,000 per game/hour. Hell, I'll bet Orgeron would have done it for less than half that! Just kidding, 'Bama fans, I know this loss sucks for you. Look at it this way -- it sucks far less than the suckage you could experience two weeks from now in the Iron Bowl.

Speaking of the Iron Bowl, what the hell is this CBS decision to air the Tennessee-Kentucky game instead? I'm a Kentucky fan, and I can't even believe that one. For my money, Auburn-Alabama is rivaled only by Army-Navy, and the football is always better in the former than the latter. There is so much bad blood and loathing between Auburn and Alabama, it simply dwarfs almost every other rivalry I can think of. Not that I don't want to see UT-UK on national TV, hell, we'll take all the help we can get with recruiting. But that decision is a head-scratcher to me.

I promised to update everyone on the South Carolina blogger's reax to the monkey-slapping they received at the hands of Mighty T and his Reptilian Rowdies, so here goes:

Garnet and Black Attack has a list of five reasons why Florida dominated this game. The big ones, to my mind, are number one and two. Tim Terrific and South Carolina (non) defense that sucks like a Dyson.

Chuck at The Cool Chicken searches for ... something.

This past weekend, Urban Meyer won a decisive victory over a South Carolina team that has been a skid. It was obvious early on that South Carolina did not have the defensive answer for Urban’s trickery this year. Then near the end of the game, unsatisfied with just winning, Urban Meyer may have done something to help the South Carolina team.

With a minute and a half remaining, a 13 point lead and the ability to run out the clock, Urban sent his star heisman caliber quarter back out on to the field and took a shot at the end zone. The pass connected and the Florida Gators notched their score up to 51 points.

There is not doubt in my mind and I am sure there is no doubt in Spurrier’s that Meyer was not taking a shot at South Carolina. That last touchdown was meant for Spurrier.

I can't say he's wrong, and Ryan Ferguson did note that Meyer had the starters in there late in the game, particularly Tebow. Perhaps Meyer was trying to shove it up Spurrier's nether regions and break it off. Or perhaps, to demonstrate to Florida fans that the legend that is the Visor was as much due to the program as it was the coach.

Either way, Spurrier cannot be even a little amused at suffering this kind of abuse at the hands of Florida. I can hear him breathing through his mask all the way from Columbia to Louisville. I'll bet he has used the dark side of the force on a few of his players by now. Fat lot of good it has done him lately, though. Maybe he can recruit Jabba the Hut to play defensive line line.

Georgia put a spank on the boys from the Plains this weekend down Athens way, and the Tigers are not happy. Track 'em Tigers says the Tigers were unprepared:

Emotionless. Unprepared. There are many words to describe Auburn’s thumping by Georgia on Saturday. In the end, it was just plain embarrassing.

The Tiger’s 45-20 loss at Sanford Stadium will go down as one of the poorest efforts in Auburn football history. Not since losing by 24 points to Alabama at home in 2001 has a Tommy Tuberville coached team looked so woefully unprepared to play a big game.

Hmm. That A & M job is probably looking a lot better to Tubby right about now. Jerry Hinnen is scratching his head, claws extended:

What ... the hell?

I don't even know how I'm supposed to react to a loss like that. Auburn claws back from 17-3 down, we're up 20-17 and have the Dawgs in second-and-long deep in their own territory, and in what seems like the blink of an eye it's yet another outright embarrassment to add to Tubby's annually-increasing stockpile of them.

It all happened so fast, even after sleeping on it, I'm left to wonder what the appropriate response is.

Heh. Georgia fans are understandably feeling their oats. Kyle King of Dawg Sports says that Good triumphed over Evil:

It isn't just that the team is playing well; it's that Georgia football has become fun. I don't know that I've ever been in Sanford Stadium for a game that was as enjoyable as yesterday's. The fans were in the stands early, dressed for the occasion, and offering their full-throated support from beginning to end. The players fed off of the crowd, played their hearts out, and had a fine time doing it.

So they are feeling the love down in Athens, and nothin' says lovin' like a big football victory over a bitter rival. Quoth Paul Westerdawg:

After the Florida game, Orson Swindle told me that Georgia brought Evil Richt to the Cocktail Party. Well, it looks like Kathryn sent Evil Richt to his second game of the season. (Image: DawgPost.com)

Evil Richt knows how to party. Evil Richt would drink you under a table. Evil Richt shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Evil Richt stares down officials and eats them for breakfast. Evil Richt fell into a burning ring of fire and laughed about it. Evil Richt once spent a night in the Starkville City jail for picking flowers. Evil Richt wears black.

And then, from Hey Jenny Slater, we have a skit that is just way to long to excerpt meaningfully starring Evil Richt. Read the whole thing.

But wait a minute ... I thought Evil was ... and Georgia was, er ... Oh, I'm so confused. Well, Georgia won, good or evil. For Tuberville, it's back to the drawing board. If Auburn loses the Iron Bowl, Tubby might start looking West ... a lot.

Florida makes the Evil Genius look average

A look around the SEC confirms a number of things that many SEC fans had long suspected:

1. LSU is the best team in the league;
   
2. Arkansas is indeed not a good football team;
3. Neither is South Carolina;
4. Georgia is looking like a good football team;
5. Florida is looking better all the time.

The jury is still out on Auburn, Alabama, Kentucky and Mississippi State. MSU has three very impressive SEC victories, one at home and two away, and with Arkansas and Ole Miss remaining on their schedule, have a real chance at winning eight games this year. Of course, Arkansas has been tougher after getting smoked, so who knows what will happen next week. And despite the fact that Arkansas isn't a very good team, Darren McFadden and Felix Jones are very good, and on a given day can dominate anyone.

I was surprised at the beat-down the Gators delivered to the Ol' Ball Coach this weekend. The Razorbacks exposed the run defense of USCe last weekend, but the Gamecocks got creamed in their own house. Neither team, seems to me, can make any case at all for their defense -- South Carolina isn't exactly an offensive powerhouse, and still managed to throw up 31 semi-meaningless points on the Gators. Still, Tim Tebow has yet to be stopped by any SEC defense except Auburn [UPDATE: An astute reader pointed out that Georgia also stopped Tebow, and I carelessly omitted mentioning them. Sorry, Dawgs].

At this point, there is so little blog reaction in from the Gamecocks that I'll defer looking at this game in depth until they have had a while to ponder this latest debacle. Obviously, the Gates are happy, but Ryan Ferguson was wondering over at Fanhouse if leaving Tebow in to run up the score was actually smart. Good question.

Mlmintampa writing for Alligator Army had no such reservations:

As much as I want to protect Tim Tebow, um, how do I say this...NO MERCY URBAN! RUN UP THE SCORE!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was nice wasn't it? If Lou Murphy had caught the other pass in the end zone, it could have been a lot worse. Lucky for Spurrier that Percy is at home sick. We could have hung 70 on him.

I think that pretty well sums up the Gator's feelings about the Visor. Ryan Ferguson has yet another post on the subject, quoting a Gamecock fan thus:

If history teaches anything, it really does not matter who coaches here, it has not improved by any discernable measure when you look at the "average" win loss ratios of the last 10-15 years or heck even more. Sure there have been ups and downs, but we always return to mediocre. So, SOS may as well stay. He can either tarnish his legacy like Holtz, or he can do something about. Heaven only knows which it will be. (sic)

Spurrier has recruited good talent to South Carolina, but so far, he hasn't been able to get the team to the point it can consistently compete with the best of the SEC. The SEC is quite unforgiving to program-building, and once you get down to a certain level, it is very hard to raise the bar in this conference. Just ask Kentucky, the Mississippi's, and Vanderbilt. Yes, all have had some success, but when was the last time any of those teams won the SEC, or even a division? Hint: It was Kentucky in 1976, the Bicentennial year -- they shared the SEC title with Georgia. Before that, you have to go to the Ole Miss teams of the 1960's.

The SEC is a very, very unforgiving league.

New Orleans Love says that Spurrier was "inconsolable" after this huge defeat. Senator Blutarsky at Get the Picture says it was karma, and karma is "a beyotch". The Visor no doubt agrees.

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.