By By Stan Torgerson / guest columnist
Sept. 9, 2002
If you think selling ice boxes to Eskimos is difficult, it's a snap compared to the Southeastern Conference selling itself this year as the strongest football league in the country.
Through the first two weeks of the season the SEC has played eight games against teams representing other major conferences and lost seven of them.
The razzle dazzle from the conference office has already started. Opening week, they said the SEC won seven out of 11 games and isn't that impressive?
No it's not. Against schools comparable to our own, Auburn lost to Southern Cal, Mississippi State was soundly beaten by Oregon, LSU was drubbed by Virginia Tech and Vanderbilt was overrun by Georgia Tech. The only Goliath against Goliath game won by an SEC team was Georgia over Clemson of the ACC.
There was no fireworks display following Alabama beating Middle Tennessee, Florida over UAB, Ole Miss over Louisiana-Monroe, South Carolina's win against New Mexico State and Tennessee's victory over outmanned Wyoming.
Granted Kentucky, supposedly one of our worst, defeated Louisville of Conference USA, supposedly one of their two best, the other being Southern Mississippi but Conference USA is not one of leagues guaranteed a team in the national championship playoff.
The recognized majors are the SEC, the Big 12, the Big Ten, the Pac 10, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big East and Notre Dame. Conference USA is not one, even though Southern Mississippi beat defending Big Ten champion Illinois this past Saturday.
Then along came week two. Alabama lost to the Big 12's Oklahoma. Florida was thrashed by a superior Miami team. South Carolina stumbled to a loss against the ACC's Virginia Cavaliers. That gave us a perfect week two record, 0-3.
Sure Ole Miss beat Memphis, Arkansas defeated Boise State, Auburn ate Western Carolina alive, Kentucky had no trouble with Texas El Paso, LSU had a mismatch with the Citadel, Tennesse defeated Middle Tennessee and Vanderbilt finally earned a win against little Furman.
But those games matched our Goliaths with a bunch of Davids and we'll get no credit nationally for those mismatches. Of the 10 games this past weekend the SEC won all seven of the games they were supposed to win and lost all three of the games they could have won.
Now if I know the SEC drum beater, and I think I do, there will be a press release this week trumpeting that Southeastern Conference teams have won 14 of their 21 non-conference games to date and that is a .667 percent winning percentage. That's accurate, even if it is misleading.
Friends, when it comes to national rankings and BCS brownie points the SEC is still likely to have two teams in this week's top 10, Tennessee, who hasn't played anyone of merit yet and Georgia which has played only one game and won that over an ACC opponent.
What has changed? Conference teams are finally playing opponents of merit instead of the pattycake teams they've been accustomed to opening with in years gone by.
Granted, last season Alabama opened with UCLA and lost. Arkansas started with UNLV. Auburn played Ball State in its opener. It was Florida and Marshall, Georgia and Arkansas State, Kentucky and Louisville (a loss), LSU-Tulane, Ole Miss-Murray State, Mississippi State and Memphis, South Carolina and Boise State, Tennessee-Syracuse (a quality opponent), and Vanderbilt opened with Middle Tennessee and lost that. So in 2001 the SEC went 9-3 in their first games but UCLA and Syracuse were the only opponents from other major conferences and we lost one of those.
The truth is SEC teams have been padding their non-conference records for years, argueing that league schedules are so demanding you have to play some easy outsiders so your young kids can get some playing experience and your regulars can get some rest.
But television's big money and the BCS is changing that thinking. The networks won't televise Arkansas and Boise State or LSU and The Citadel but they will carry SEC teams on a regional basis in preseason games that look even remotely competitive. To get full network with its big bucks you've got to play an intersectional game with broad national interest. Example, Ole Miss and Memphis was televised regionally. Alabama and Oklahoma made the tube coast to coast.
So let's not kid each other. In the first two weeks of the 2002 season eight of our SEC teams played opponents with national prestige. Seven of them were beaten, most by substantial margins. Is the best football in the country really played in the Southeastern Conference?
Not this year.