SEC out of conference 2014

[Dossenator]

Combined bowl and regular season SEC West has a winning record against Big five conference teams and not a single game was played at home (all 11 games were road games or neutral site match ups). SEC West also had quality wins outside Big 5 with a neutral site win over Fiesta Bowl champs Boise State and 11-3 Mac Champs Northern Illinois.

Pre bowl games:

SEC West (28-0 out of conference)
Bama (4-0) beat West Virginia neutral site
Ark (4-0) beat Texas Tech in Lubbock, destroyed Northern Illinois
Auburn (4-0) beat Kansas St on road
LSU (4-0) beat Wisconsin neutral site
Ole Miss (4-0) beat Boise St by 21 neutral site
Miss St (4-0)
Texas A&M (4-0)

SEC East (20-7 out of conference)
Flo (2-1) lost to Fl St by 5
Georgia (3-1) beat Clemson lost to Georgia Tech in OT
Kentucky (3-1) lost to Lousville by 4
Missouri (3-1) lost to Indiana by 4
South Carolina (3-1) beat ECU and lost to Clemson
Tennessee (3-1) lost to Oklahoma
Vanderbilt (3-1)


Bowl outcomes:

SEC West (2-5)
Wins: Arkansas and Texas A&M
Losses: Bama, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss, Miss St

SEC East (4-0 so far...Flor has not played yet)
Wins: Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, and Tennessee

Go figure... SEC west dominates out of conference during regular season with several big wins (many on road and neutral sites). SEC East struggled in regular season vs non conf and now have not lost in bowl play.

I am not saying SEC is not down but it will be back next year. Week QB play had a lot to do with bowl outcomes this year. BAMA and LSU lose more to the NFL than any other teams. Ridiculous how many LSU has lost the past few years to NFL (seniors and juniors leaving early). Ole Miss never overcame the Treadwell injury and again Bo Waallace makes too many mistakes. Like normal Miss St played no one out of conference during the year. Not sure how much we can take out of one year of bowls but all we will hear in the off season is the SEC is dead (I guess that is what everyone wanted to hear).

Hey, Arkansas won their bowl game so I will have a smile on my face for months!

[Spence]

The SEC isn't down. Just not quite as dominating as the last several years. I think Arkansas has a good chance at the west title next year.

[Eric]

The SEC West got huge props for going 5-0 against their biggest non-conference games (literally only 5 big non-conference games). Then they lose five big non-conference games in the bowls, and then the sky is falling. The bottom line is that these are pretty limited sample sizes, so crowning them as the greatest division of all time was premature before you saw them compete against more than five decent teams. I would still give the SEC West the nod as the "best division currently in football", but the gulf was exaggerated grossly. Just as I wouldn't fawn over them after five wins, I'm not going to dump on them after five losses.

[Dossenator]

The SEC isn't down. Just not quite as dominating as the last several years. I think Arkansas has a good chance at the west title next year.

We will see.

Ark 2015 schedule:
Road: Bama, LSU, Tennessee, and Ole Miss.
Neutral site: Texas A&M
Conf Home: Auburn, Miss St, Missouri
Non con Home: Texas Tech, Toledo, UTEP, UT Martin

Bama and Tenn on road will be toughest games.

[Spence]

Bama will be breaking in a new QB and replacing some major players from this year. They are never easy, but next year is as good a year as any to play them at home.

[Dossenator]

The SEC West got huge props for going 5-0 against their biggest non-conference games (literally only 5 big non-conference games). Then they lose five big non-conference games in the bowls, and then the sky is falling. The bottom line is that these are pretty limited sample sizes, so crowning them as the greatest division of all time was premature before you saw them compete against more than five decent teams. I would still give the SEC West the nod as the "best division currently in football", but the gulf was exaggerated grossly. Just as I wouldn't fawn over them after five wins, I'm not going to dump on them after five losses.

I think the hype came from more than this year. It started back in 2010 or so (the year Ark played in Sugar Bowl). Bama, LSU, and Ark all ranked in top 5 going into final week of season. The myth grew with each passing season and SEC bowl dominance. It has been a tough go. I agree that this years SEC West was over exaggerated but it was not a knee jerk response to one season. Several seasons of dominance from Bama and LSU and other teams stepping up like A&M, Ark, Miss St, and Ole Miss lead to the hype. Whether deserved or not I think that is what lead to this year.

My big issue is rankings coming out so early...before a game has been played. They were ranking Miss St and others too high without the wins to back it up. It would be nice to see at least half a season before the first polls are released. But money and tv viewers drives everything. So they want to hype number whoever vs number whoever.

[Dossenator]

Bama will be breaking in a new QB and replacing some major players from this year. They are never easy, but next year is as good a year as any to play them at home.

Hogs should be 5-0 going into that game. Will be fun if that happens.

[Spence]

Tennessee will be a bear at their place next year. That is a character building game.

[Dossenator]

Tennessee will be a bear at their place next year. That is a character building game.

As a fan I dislike character building games.

Good luck to Ohio St vs Oregon. Oregon has been so close and recent years and it looks like this could be their time. Should be a good game. Then again Ohio St might beat them by 3 TD's.

[Eric]

I've never been too bothered with the polls coming out in the preseason. Obviously people are just guessing, but I don't think it usually helps or hurts a team's chances at the end of the year. TCU and Mississippi State each skyrocketed with their respective resumes and they were unranked heading into the year. It does lead to some overhyping, such as the South Carolina and Texas A&M game where everybody thought that A&M was going to be ridiculous and Kenny Hill would have been a Heisman contender. Looking back at it now, it was one 7-6 team beating another 7-6 team with a mediocre defense. Not much different than Washington playing Stanford, really. I still think if people saw that game without the numbers attached to their names, people would still start daydreaming about the future and the media would still trump up their efforts.

The problem part comes when teams get credit for ranked wins when it turns out the team isn't any good, and then they leapfrog to an unjustified position and then stay there out of inertia. Mississippi State got a ton of credit for beating A&M and LSU. Those were solid wins, but MSU leapfrogged everybody to #2 by virtue of beating two decent teams who people thought at the time were really good. But I think if the poll started in October, they still would have slotted Mississippi State where they had them, because we didn't think less of A&M, Auburn, or LSU until late October (maybe November for Auburn) when it was obvious that they weren't going to be world-beaters. The way the playoff committee has been doing this though, they seem to wipe the slate clean every week. So if a team beats three preseason ranked teams early and then it appears that those teams were overrated, the committee doesn't seem to be counting those as ranked victories. The polls loved FSU for beating Oklahoma State, Clemson, and Notre Dame at the time, and while I still think OSU and ND were good wins because the teams racked up injuries after their FSU games, the committee wasn't going to give them any love because Ok State finished 6-6 and Notre Dame was 7-5. So they dropped them to #3 for not winning impressively enough against above average teams.

[Spence]

Tennessee will be a bear at their place next year. That is a character building game.

As a fan I dislike character building games.

Good luck to Ohio St vs Oregon. Oregon has been so close and recent years and it looks like this could be their time. Should be a good game. Then again Ohio St might beat them by 3 TD's.

I just don't know how far you can go with your 3rd string QB. Jones has major league guts and isn't afraid of anything, but he will need to make great decisions to be able to keep up with the Ducks. This will be the 3rd game in a row the Buckeye defense will face a Heisman candidate. First Gordon, then Cooper, next Mariota. They just keep getting better. While I think the Buckeyes can score on about anyone, getting stops on that offense is going to be a major challenge.

[Eric]

I wonder what the over/under will be for that game. I'll guess Oregon 48 / Ohio State 42. Is that in the ballpark?

Watching these games the last two days took me back to 2003, 2004, and 2006. Other than the Sugar Bowl year, which was kind of chincy because Michigan State should have gone there and the Virginia Tech bid was debatable, I haven't felt that "big-game feel" for the Wolverines for that long. I did get a sense of that in the Capital One Bowl against Tim Tebow, since that was a huge game. But yeah, here's to hoping that Harbaugh can get us a bid in a playoff someday

[Spence]

I wonder what the over/under will be for that game. I'll guess Oregon 48 / Ohio State 42. Is that in the ballpark?

Watching these games the last two days took me back to 2003, 2004, and 2006. Other than the Sugar Bowl year, which was kind of chincy because Michigan State should have gone there and the Virginia Tech bid was debatable, I haven't felt that "big-game feel" for the Wolverines for that long. I did get a sense of that in the Capital One Bowl against Tim Tebow, since that was a huge game. But yeah, here's to hoping that Harbaugh can get us a bid in a playoff someday

If I were betting I would take the over Harbaugh will win quick that people think. Just not against us.

[Eric]

I've already got the Utah game circled on my calendar. Michigan is supposed to return the home-and-home. I think the Wolverines will lose and Harbaugh will use it as a teaching moment. The vibe that I'm getting from that team is, "oh, cool, we have Harbaugh now so winning will come as if by magic," and they're probably forgetting that winning starts with them. It's unfortunate and maybe that attitude will change, I hope it does. But that game in altitude and in a raucous environment, in addition to our QB issues, I don't think it bodes well. I think Oregon State will be a tough game at home, but I don't think they will be a great team, even with Gary Andersen. We'll see.

I have no idea why Michigan has zero regional games on the slate. We're playing UNLV, BYU, Oregon State, and Utah. I guess the MAC fell out of fashion?

[donovan]

I've already got the Utah game circled on my calendar. Michigan is supposed to return the home-and-home. I think the Wolverines will lose and Harbaugh will use it as a teaching moment. The vibe that I'm getting from that team is, "oh, cool, we have Harbaugh now so winning will come as if by magic," and they're probably forgetting that winning starts with them. It's unfortunate and maybe that attitude will change, I hope it does. But that game in altitude and in a raucous environment, in addition to our QB issues, I don't think it bodes well. I think Oregon State will be a tough game at home, but I don't think they will be a great team, even with Gary Andersen. We'll see.

I have no idea why Michigan has zero regional games on the slate. We're playing UNLV, BYU, Oregon State, and Utah. I guess the MAC fell out of fashion?

The problem with Oregon State has not been the coach. Andersen was a good hire, but not sure it will make a difference.