Given time, it will all change. Who knows, maybe some off the radar team like Colorado will emerge in the mid 2010s.
That's an interesting topic. I know college football is cyclical, and the SEC will eventually run into more than 1 great team every 4 NC appearances, but you have to wonder what kind of an impact ESPN will have on the future of the SEC.
Hype is what gets Auburn the speed & elite talent talk, where Wisconsin gets stuck with the hulking plowhorse label. But it doesn't take very long to peruse the interwebs and realize that the hyperbole that ESPN spews is implanted in impessionable minds. Nick Saban & Urban Meyer certainly earn their success on and off the field, even if the angry midget has his comeuppance coming one day. Most of the other programs however, especially the Auburns & Tennessees, ride the coattails of successful national powers.
I think there's a serious danger of a self-serving cycle, where unearned praise and greatness is heaped upon schools by proximity, when their only real accomplishment was being around someone else's success.
ESPN has paid a huge fortune to be the official sponsor of SEC football. It's in their best interest to make it into the greatest thing since sliced bread, even if they don't intend to distort the truth or intentionally plant seeds for those programs.
ESPN has always been prone to exaggeration, but since the modern era of football began on New Years Day 2006, we've seen a level of vitriol & television trolling that dwarfs most smack talk on message boards. It's not about the greatness of USC slaying Oklahoma in dominating fashion, or Vince Young turning in all-time great performances...
It's about how badly this team is exposed. How unworthy this conference is. How slow they are. How archaic their schemes are.
Florida was disrespected heading into the NC game, but I don't remember the whole conference being bagged on in proximity. If they had lost, it would have been proof of how great Troy Smith & Ohio State was all season long. Would it have proven how unworthy the SEC was to get that bowl berth?
There were some epic beatdowns in NC games before that, but I don't recall folks trying to find a way to keep that losing team out of the NC in successive years because of being unworthy.
We're on a very dangerous slope with Disney calling the shots. It would be that way even if Pryor leads OSU to a NC next year, as the media will jump on his bandwagon in a hurry (and the defense will still get about 5 minutes of attention tops).
I was talking about the Crystal Trophy and the value of winning it. You are talking about the unfairness of the selection process and the politicization of it all as controlled by ESPiN. We agree about all of that; it is an unfair process. I'm not saying it is good - or fair - or desired. I was merely pounting out to Kyle why perception actually matters in a substantive way despite the unquestiond greater tradition of success your program has over a program like UF. Perception almost got the Skunkbears into the BCSCG as #2 before the weird dominoes started falling that produced the Big-10 media back lash. We (UF) might jump a more worthy team next year due to our current run of success as a program and conference. Given time, it will all change. Who knows, maybe some off the radar team like Colorado will emerge in the mid 2010s.
We never would have been voted into a BCSCG after the pummeling Nebraska gave us the year before, the addition of Bob Stoops or not.
