SEC's Strange New World: Losing Big Games (cbssports)

May 28, 2015, 8:50 AM

ESPN ain't gonna like this

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/jon-solomon/25196422/secs-strange-new-world-losing-big-games-hoping-to-regain-dominance

DESTIN, Florida -- The height of over-the-top SEC rhetoric may have reached its peak a year ago at the SEC spring meetings. Arkansas coach Bret Bielema explained that he left Wisconsin because the SEC would get a “minimum” of two teams in the four-team College Football Playoff.

Privately, SEC leaders knew any conference getting two teams in the playoff was -- and remains -- a longshot. Still, the “minimum” comment fit the SEC culture of, “It's not boasting if you can back it up.” The SEC seemed to view the relinquishing of national dominance in 2013 after seven straight titles as a one-year blip, not the dawn of a new era given more parity across the country and one extra postseason game.

Everyone knew the SEC's unprecedented dominance wouldn't last forever. The SEC won't wither and die due to two years without a national title -- not with as much money, exposure, talent, ego and pressure in the SEC. This is a conference, after all, in which the SEC West's last-place coach in 2015 will make at least $4 million a year.

But as SEC coaches complain that they are disadvantaged by graduate transfer and satellite camp rules, the league faces questions its peers once had to answer. Most notably, what's up with losing so many big games?

The SEC built its much-deserved reputation on high-profile postseason wins, but the ###### has been reversed lately. The SEC is 0-5 over the past two years in BCS/College Football Playoff games, losing those contests by an average of 15.6 points. The SEC went 10-4 in BCS games during its seven-year title run between the 2006 and 2012 seasons -- one of those losses was to itself -- and won those games by an average of 11 points.

“If you look at it from top to bottom and that's how you're going to evaluate the league, I think the league is in better shape than it's ever been because there have been more really good teams,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “Now, if you use the barometer that the championship is the only barometer for the league, then I guess you would have an argument against that.”

We've reached the point in SEC dialogue in which Saban suggested an uneven playing field regarding satellite camps and graduate transfer rules could prevent the SEC from playing for future national championships. Indeed, these are unusual times for the SEC. Consider what happened in the past two seasons:

• Florida State edged Auburn for the national title in 2013 to end the BCS era. Auburn squandered a 21-3 lead in the first half and fell in the final seconds of a classic game.

• Alabama, the SEC's dominant program for nearly a decade, lost the Sugar Bowl in SEC country in consecutive years. Alabama apologists tried to play off the Oklahoma loss in January 2014 as the Crimson Tide not caring after losing the Iron Bowl. That excuse didn't fly last January when fourth-seeded Ohio State, with a quarterback who was third on the depth chart to start the year, knocked off No. 1 Alabama in a semifinal game everyone clearly cared about.

• TCU whipped Ole Miss 42-3 at last season's Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. The game tied for the worst bowl loss ever by an SEC team, joining Georgia's 39-point loss to Nebraska in the 1969 Sun Bowl.

• Georgia Tech rushed for 452 yards and won last season's Orange Bowl by two touchdowns over Mississippi State, which at one point was No. 1 in the first CFP rankings.

• In the past two years, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia had a 2-4 record against their respective ACC in-state rivals (Clemson, Florida State and Georgia Tech). From 2008 to 2012, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia went 11-4 against their ACC rivals.

• Two other recent SEC West powers lost high-profile bowl games last season. Auburn was edged in overtime by Wisconsin, and LSU lost a tight game to Notre Dame.

“I'll tell you why it happened,” South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier joked about the SEC West's postseason woes last year. “They got all of that publicity during the season. I kid Dan Mullen and Hugh Freeze. Remember the old ‘one Mississippi, two Mississippi' when you count numbers? That's what they were, they were [No.] 1 and [No.] 2 for two or three weeks, which was wonderful for the state of Mississippi.”

In hindsight, Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said he second-guesses whether he should have had two starting offensive linemen undergo surgeries before the loss to TCU. The Rebels lost two more linemen in the bowl game.

“I don't know if it would have made a difference in the outcome,” Freeze said. “TCU was better than us that day, for sure. … When you have a month to prepare for teams, and certainly the banner that the SEC carries, you're going to get the best shot against very good football teams. I think the margin of difference in our league and others on a given Saturday is probably not that much. But over the course of a season in this grind we're in I think is what we all say is so tough.”

The SEC's return to reality has rival conferences sticking out their chests more and feeling better about themselves. The Big Ten is fresh off a national championship from Ohio State, which figures to be the preseason No. 1 team, and added proven winner Jim Harbaugh to try to resurrect Michigan.

“I love the fact there's energy about Big Ten football in a way that I haven't seen in a while,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a recent interview. “I'm really excited about that.”

The Pac-12 tied the SEC for most teams in the final 2014 Associated Press poll with six.

“We're arguably the No. 1 football conference,” Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said. “I don't get too hung up on one poll or another, but let's say we're right there.”

Scott acknowledged the Pac-12 needs to eventually take the next step by winning a football national title after a drought of 10 years and counting, the longest among the Power Five conferences. “If we're regularly in the playoff, I have no doubt we'll have a team that wins it,” he said. “I do think that's the next and final step that needs to happen for the country to fully recognize just how significant a transformation we've made in football.”

By nature, success in college football tends to be cyclical. The last time the SEC faced questions about vulnerability was a decade ago when the ACC added Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College. Expansion coincided with the ACC and SEC splitting 36 games from 1999 to 2003. With Miami on board, Florida State coach Bobby Bowden boasted the ACC was about to challenge the SEC for supremacy.

SEC commissioner Mike Slive's response in 2004 became somewhat of a battle cry: “None of us ever becomes great by being complacent. We feel the competition. We know the competition. We welcome the competition. We are the best. They're going to have their work cut out for them.”

Undefeated Auburn got left out of the BCS title game in 2004, causing the SEC to say, “Never again.” The SEC kicked down the door in 2006 when Florida edged Michigan in the final BCS standings for the right to blow out Ohio State for the national title. The SEC never looked back and won the big games -- until now.

“There was a pretty good run,” Florida coach Jim McElwain said, “and I'm pretty sure there's going to be another run come up.”

Perhaps. More likely, we're never going to see a run of seven straight football national titles like the SEC produced.

“The SEC is what it is,” Spurrier said. “The Big Ten, the Pac-12, the Big 12, they've all got wonderful teams, too. It's competitive all the way across the world. That's the way college football is now.”

Spurrier may have offered the best battle cry the SEC can rally around to regroup: Some humility and acknowledgment that college football constantly changes. You either evolve or get left behind, no matter how great your success was in the past.
Topics: Larry Scott, Alabama Crimson Tide, Arkansas Razorbacks, Auburn Tigers, Boston College Eagles, Clemson Tigers, Florida Gators, Florida State Seminoles, Georgia Bulldogs, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, LSU Tigers, Michigan Wolverines, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Ohio Bobcats, Ohio State Buckeyes, Oklahoma Sooners, Ole Miss Rebels, South Carolina Gamecocks, TCU Horned Frogs, Virginia Cavaliers, Virginia Tech Hokies, Wisconsin Badgers, NCAAF

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Best Is The Standard

Looks like a pattern to me...

(c/p from OP)

• Florida State edged Auburn for the national title in 2013 to end the BCS era. Auburn squandered a 21-3 lead in the first half and fell in the final seconds of a classic game.

• Alabama, the SEC's dominant program for nearly a decade, lost the Sugar Bowl in SEC country in consecutive years. Alabama apologists tried to play off the Oklahoma loss in January 2014 as the Crimson Tide not caring after losing the Iron Bowl. That excuse didn't fly last January when fourth-seeded Ohio State, with a quarterback who was third on the depth chart to start the year, knocked off No. 1 Alabama in a semifinal game everyone clearly cared about.

• TCU whipped Ole Miss 42-3 at last season's Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. The game tied for the worst bowl loss ever by an SEC team, joining Georgia's 39-point loss to Nebraska in the 1969 Sun Bowl.

• Georgia Tech rushed for 452 yards and won last season's Orange Bowl by two touchdowns over Mississippi State, which at one point was No. 1 in the first CFP rankings.

• In the past two years, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia had a 2-4 record against their respective ACC in-state rivals (Clemson, Florida State and Georgia Tech). From 2008 to 2012, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia went 11-4 against their ACC rivals.

• Two other recent SEC West powers lost high-profile bowl games last season. Auburn was edged in overtime by Wisconsin, and LSU lost a tight game to Notre Dame.

SEC's Strange New World: Losing Big Games (cbssports)

Slurrier offering advice on being humble??***

Re: Slurrier offering advice on being humble??***

No, see his comments, which Power 5 Conference did

And with allll that said, they will start

Let's not forget sec teams give 100% every week, but other

what's up with losing so many big games? Its called SECing

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