spurrier;1186937; said:
thanks for your thoughts guys. the only post i didnt agree with was some guy saying that the sec teams basically didnt have the guts to play the big ten teams and just played each other to pad our strength of schedules. firstly, i hope there is proof that an sec team refused to play a big ten team. If there is i would like to know about it. Next, and the biggest reason is that, besides having to possibly play in a ccg at the end of the year against the other sides best, an sec team has a tough enough road to deal with in its own right. The sec is the toughest conference for a reason. You first has to play fla, ga, ut, and lsu. additionally clemson is on the schedule as an out of conference mainstay. that is exactly why we dont need to play the big ten in the regular season. We save it until the end.
SEC teams generally play weak OOC schedules (apologies Gatorubet, Florida much better this year). How about some of these powerhouses on the other SEC team schedules (often on multiple SEC schedules): East Carolina, Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee Martin, Louisiana Monroe, Samford, Wofford, UTEP, Rice, Army...c'mon, be serious.
Most of the teams play almost all of their games at home every year. You will not see a ranked Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 10 or etc game on the schedule...ever...away. In fact, I just looked and, although I don't know where some of these little Mickey Mouse schools are, I can't see one game played against a team north of the Mason-Dixon line. If there is a game against a team west of the Mississippi, then it is at the SEC home grounds and it's a real pushover.
So, my point is this. Power ratings reward primarily wins. If you win all your games against OOC teams then you enter the conference schedule unbeaten and with inflated power ratings. Once teams enter league play with inflated power ratings, the effects are preserved because every team has higher ratings than deserved.
You guys lose a couple and, well, "we're the SEC and geez are we tough. We don't need to play anybody else who's tough." Like I said, we'd love to see you good old boys come on up to Midwest in November and play a game in the cold rain and snow. Heck, we'd like to see you venture out from behind your momma's skirt and play games against good teams anywhere else.
I think that the SEC is a really good conference and maybe even the best. We have a lower division school on our schedule in recent years, as Youngstown State is moving up to the upper division. We got mired into playing more in-state teams than many fans would like because of the state government wanting to maximize the financial effects of that. But, we play a tough ranked team every year and, yes, SEC teams have refused to play us in home and home series.
Before you guys can crow about how your league is everything, you need to show up like men and play tough teams away from home. And I mean far away from home like California and Ohio and play in something other than 70 degree weather.
Until then, I'm sticking to what I said.
