It is amazing to me that so many people come onto fox sports and make statements that just do not have any facts behind them. They regurgitate them over and over again hoping to get other sports fan to eat up their supposed knowledge and become a believer. The main focus of my argument today is the Lie that the SEC is the best conference in football. Now, let me start off by saying that I am a Big East fan (WVU). So I take a special interest considering most people who blog on fox sports considers our conference the “Big Easy”. Listed below are a couple of statements made by other bloggers and my reply with statistical evidence to the contrary.
The Big East plays 1-AA schools, get a real schedule.
Reply – Actually many teams in D-1 play 1-AA schools, I would say the majority do at one time during the year. But, if you look at the stats, the SEC teams have more games against 1-AA schools then the Big East. 8 out of 12 SEC teams play 1-AA schools or 66%. 5 out of 8 Big East schools play 1-AA schools or 62%.
The out of conference teams that are played by the Big East are easy wins because they do not play anyone.
Reply – In reality this is not the case. With the season not over yet, it is difficult to add up total wins and losses but as of Thursday, here are the stats.
WVU’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 41%
Rutgers out of conference opponents winning percentage 43%
Louisville out of conference opponents winning percentage 43%
LSU’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 35%
Florida’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 45%
Auburn’s out of conference opponents winning percentage is 44%
The difference breaks down to about a game, nothing more.
Now for the sake of argument listed below is Ohio State’s and Michigan’s out of conference opponent’s schedule
Ohio State’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 62%
Michigan’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 47%
Any SEC team could play in the Big East and win the conference
Interesting considering that the Big East is 2-0 verses the SEC this year. I think that same thing was said before WVU played UGA in the Sugar Bowl, I forget what happened to your reigning SEC Champions again.
WVU should not be ranked as high as they are what have they done.
Reply, actually they have done a lot; they beat the best team the SEC had in the Sugar Bowl, in Atlanta no doubt. They have remained undefeated thus far this year. Have two legitimate Heisman trophy candidates in Slaton and White. Thus far they have done everything that the pollsters have asked of them.
As you can see the SEC is not as great and powerful as many would have you believe. If you prescribe to the antidote that you are only as strong as your weakest link(s), the bottom three teams by record in the SEC are a combined 8-19. The bottom three teams in the Big East are 11-14.
