Has anyone mentioned that the SEC team from Alabama lost this evening??

[madinmaryland]

[R B Garr]

1. The end of the BCS and no SEC team.

Coincidence? There was always some buzz about the SEC's so-called "strength of schedule" advantage, which was suspect during the BCS and their compilations.

[JonLP24]

2. This Alabama team wasn't nearly as great as early editions

One season they allowed a 4.3 yards per pass attempt, highest in the nation --http://www.cfbstats.com/2011/leader/national/team/defense/split01/category02/sort04.html

This year no one is below 5 but Alabama sits at #22 allowing 6.4

However, the SEC was fortunate in the soft defenses they drew in Championship games. Florida 2007 avoided USC which had the nation's best pass defense, ironically drawing Ohio State instead but this version is a much better squad.

[R B Garr]

5. Yes, and that's usually the way it works with those dynasties or

semi-dynasties. They peak, and then start to slip which is the natural cycle, I guess.

I do remember that with USC in 2007, as well. So much controversy with the BCS for the non-SEC teams. Actually, I was remembering those past Ohio State teams and their somewhat blasé performances, and you are right about this squad being better. Looks like that big name coach paid off. I heard his stats tonight after the game, and they are impressive!

[hughee99]

3. In all fairness, they only lost two of their EIGHT BCS championship games, and one was to another

SEC team. If you want to argue they didn't deserve their spot in those games over the years, I guess you'd have to argue the other team didn't either.

It was certainly an unimpressive performance for the SEC this year, and I wouldn't be surprised if this trend continue.

[R B Garr]

4. Yeah, I know what you mean. In the actual Out-of-Conference games,

they did make a good showing, which seemed enough to quiet the rest of college football, BUT there was always a suspicion about the SEC because their in conference contenders (Chattanooga, Wolford ((sp?)) were a bunch of no-names so they racked up points on those teams, which strengthened them somehow in the BCS standings. Plus the ESPN bias (didn't ESPN have a contract with the SEC somehow, which explains the over-hyping.).

I'm sure all of you who post in this group are experts compared to my casual observations about the BCS, but I remember from the beginning how they favored the SEC (I'm remembering the USC/LSU controversy way back in the beginning).

Should be an interesting matchup this year.

[hughee99]

6. A fair observation. The SEC often scheduled non-conference games against weak opponents

Because (fairly or not) they played enough in-conference top ranked opponents that they usually didn't need the extra boost to get into the BCS championship. As a result, the only real opportunity you'd have to compare the SEC to other conferences happened at the END of the year. Without having those games earlier in the year, they couldn't get a good measure of the SEC's quality and the assumption that they were such a good conference was probably the reason they ended up with so many top 25 teams. It also helped them that they had a conference championship, which gave the conference winner and extra boost. For most of the BCS, the Big 10 and Pac-10 didn't, which hurt their chances.