Auburn-UCLA Shot Down

[King Crimson]

Was that one of the Jack Mildren OU teams?

Mildren's senior year, Greg Pruitt's JR year. my dad's younger brother is the guy Mildren beat out in 1969. uncle had a tough spot at OU, sandwiched between 1968 All-Big 8 QB Bobby Warmack and 2 time All American Jack Mildren.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

We could have this argument all day every day and no one's opinion is gonna change. SEC people (and the media, coaches, rankings agencies, etc) say the league's schools play tougher schedules week in and week out because of the conference's strength most every year. Every other conferences' fans disagree. I can see others' points, yet I agree that playing an SEC schedule (even in an off year SEC schools kick ass in the bowls and win NCs :D ) is pretty damn rough.

I just sorta think since the SECers have taken on an active role of chest puffing and "WE'RE #1!!!" finger waving, above and beyond other conferences, that your guys should think about adopting the "anytime, anywhere" mantra. It would suit you well, since, you know, you're the self-ascribed Almighties of college football. Sure, other teams play weak ass schedules but they're not in the business of waxing greatness about themselves quite like the SEC. I don't quite understand how arrogance and ball-tucking can go hand-in-hand, but the SEC has found a way to pull that one off.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

There's no point in citing rankings that aren't used by the BCS formula. Not that guys like Massey and Sagarin necessarily have the best systems, but their numbers are actually used by the BCS, so you can cite them and have some credibility.

As opposed to all these unofficial ranking systems everybody and their brothers have created. None of it means jack as argumentative tools.

[Terry in Crapchester]

Last year, all year, we heard that the Big 12 was, by far, the strongest conference. Mississippi and Florida begged to differ.

Next year, the SEC may get kicked all over the field in every bowl game. It's cyclical.

I've posted this before, but there's a danger, I think, in reading too much into bowl games, certainly in terms of ranking the conferences. Pinpointing the motivation for a team in a bowl game is a bit tricky, but I doubt that the sixth-place team in a given conference is motivated to prove how strong its conference was.

There's also the fact that the conferences don't all get a similarly-challenging slate of bowl games. For example, the Big East typically fares relatively well in bowl games, but I don't think anyone would argue that the Big East is the best football conference in the country. At most, an argument could be made that the Big East is an underrated football conference, and that it doesn't receive a sufficiently-challenging slate of bowl games.

At most, I think the bowl games, as applied to a conference as a whole, measure the extent to which the conference met or failed to meet expectations in a given year.

We could have this argument all day every day and no one's opinion is gonna change. SEC people (and the media, coaches, rankings agencies, etc) say the league's schools play tougher schedules week in and week out because of the conference's strength most every year. Every other conferences' fans disagree. I can see others' points, yet I agree that playing an SEC schedule (even in an off year SEC schools kick ass in the bowls and win NCs :D ) is pretty damn rough.

I just sorta think since the SECers have taken on an active role of chest puffing and "WE'RE #1!!!" finger waving, above and beyond other conferences, that your guys should think about adopting the "anytime, anywhere" mantra. It would suit you well, since, you know, you're the self-ascribed Almighties of college football. Sure, other teams play weak ass schedules but they're not in the business of waxing greatness about themselves quite like the SEC. I don't quite understand how arrogance and ball-tucking can go hand-in-hand, but the SEC has found a way to pull that one off.

^^^^ Imho, a pretty good assessment of why the SEC catches the crap it does here about its OOC scheduling.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

USC sos - 16
Auburn sos - 37

According to that link.