Our Honor Defend

As Buckeye fans know all too well, and, apparently, as the rest of the country is beginning to find out, the SEC appears to be the “it” conference of college football. Boasting the past two national champions (of course, at the expense of our Buckeyes), the SEC has also gone 12-5 in the past two years of bowls, 7-2 in the past bowl season alone. Naturally, this has led media types to reaffirm notions of “SEC speed” as the basis for inherent superiority of the conference in interconference competition. But how valid is this claim if we analyze it across time and analyze it with a larger N scope than sports pundits seemingly permit with their focus on the the past two national title games? This becomes the topic of this endeavor. Below, I present a composite index of a variety of measures used to assess the performance of SEC teams for every year of its current format (1992 to the present). I then use the index to assess the SEC across the past 15 years and offer critiques and qualifications for the chestbumping of SEC fans and their sympathetic college football pundits in national media outlets.

SEC performance, through the years [index]

Results
For the past 15 years of its current format, the SEC is, in total, 57-81 against nonconference competition that finished in the AP Top 25. Naturally, the use of this measurement may be problematic in that it does include matchups where SEC cellar-dwellers were facing the top flight of other conferences (i.e, Missouri-Mississippi 2007). However, a review of the list of matchups suggests this doesn’t bias the findings against the SEC. If we want to control for these lopsided matchups and exclude them — measured as any case when an SEC team of 3 wins or less lost to a ranked conference opponent with 9 wins or more — we would only be excluding 7 cases¹, bringing the total to 57-74. Moreover, such a criticism misses the point inherent to the claim of conference superiority, especially with how deterministic SEC fans and football pundits use the claim. If the SEC is, top to bottom, the best conference in college football, then logically, we should expect a weaker SEC team to beat a top flight nonconference team. Showing hesitations otherwise then greatly waters down the substance of the claim to being matchup specific, which makes the claim of SEC superiority spurious to individual matchup dynamics. To the point, though, the truth is these matchups mostly consist of marquee early season matchups (USC-Auburn, USC-Arkansas, Oklahoma-Alabama), or the bowl matchups, which is an effective proxy for measuring results against equally matched interconference opponents. On the average, the SEC’s record is less than impressive for the past 15 years that is not reducible to the performance of any one school. That said, every Florida loss to Florida State and the rough patch it hit with the tail end of the Spurrier era and the Zook days contribute in important ways to the aggregate product here.

Moving forward to the interconference matchups and the bowl record presented here, the aggregate results are all in favour of the SEC. The SEC is 19-15 against the Big 12 since 1996 and 30-21 against the Big 10 since 1992. With really nothing to report about the Big 12 measure, I turn attention to the SEC-Big 10 record given the recent media sensation regarding these two conferences. The SEC has a a winning record against the Big 10 that cannot ultimately be denied unless I fudge with the data, which isn’t appropriate. That said, a few interesting wrinkles come up. First, the Kentucky-Indiana series, since discontinued or put on hiatus after 2005, carry that aggregate statistic, counting approximately 28 percent of the observations. Therein, Kentucky leads the series since 1992 by a count of 10-4. Excluding that series and the Michigan-Vandy 2006 matchup then limits the statistic to only the postseason matchups, in which case the SEC still leads 20-16. Lastly, since 1992, the SEC is +21 in its bowl matchups, posting an all-around impressive record of 64-43.

Interpretation
A further eyeballing of the index shows 1996-1998 to be something of a crucial juncture of the SEC: 1996 and 1997 were among the best years in SEC history, and 1998 seems to be the year in which the SEC undertakes an observable decline up until 2006. 1996 was a national championship year for the SEC, as Florida pasted Florida State in its Sugar Bowl rematch. Elsewhere, the SEC was 4-2 against ranked nonconference foes, was ranked the strongest conference in college football, was undefeated against the Big 10 and won all its bowl games. 1997 might very well be the best in SEC history. Again, it’s total product affords it the title of top conference in college football for that year; it was 7-1 against ranked nonconference teams, 3-0 against the Big 10, 4-1 in its bowl games and had a horrifying average strength of schedule of around 9². Indeed, the conference was one Nebraska-sized Orange Bowl beatdown of the Manning volunteers away from total perfection.

1998 was another national championship year for the SEC, as the Volunteers finally broke through. Yet, it seemingly was also the start of significant decline in the overall product until about 2005, notwithstanding 2001 and 2003 (an LSU title) being pretty good years. From 1998 to 2005, the SEC was 31-28 in bowl matchups, 26-50 against ranked non-conference opponents, 10-11 against the Big 10 when the Indiana-Kentucky series if factored out. Most noticeably, the SEC’s conference rank plummeted from its usual status near or at the top to being near or at the bottom. Moreover, the average strength of schedule for an SEC team went from as high as 9, averaging around 20, to fluttering in the 40s, reaching its absolute nadir in 2004 and 2005, coinciding of course with the Auburn 2004 undefeated team. Conversely, from 1992-1997, the SEC was 21-10 in bowl games, either 1 or 2 in conference rankings, and 11-4 against the Big Ten in all matchups. Naturally, 2006 and 2007 were much better years for the SEC, coinciding with — but not demonstrably caused by — the arrival/establishment of Miles, Saban, and Spurrier (to S Carolina).

So what does this all mean for assessing various things we hear on ESPN or that we hear in the South? A few thoughts occur.

CLAIM: the SEC is ipso facto superior to every other college football conference. That’s just how football is in the South.
My take: Generally speaking, there’s a lot in support of this claim, though it’s important that we qualify it. Indeed, my interest is not in refuting claims of SEC superiority, but rather in qualifying it for a better understanding of what’s going on here. The SEC had a great stretch from 1992 to 1997, where two Husker bitchslappings precluded the SEC from hauling in 3 national titles in a six year stretch. Herein, the SEC won its bowl games with regularity and — especially in 1997 — won its pivotal nonconference bouts. That said, it should be apparent that, notwithstanding 2 national titles herein, the period from 1998 to 2005 was rather pedestrian for the SEC, where for the key victories of Tennessee in the Fiesta Bowl and LSU in its Sugar Bowls, there’s still Michigan-Florida 2002, Wisconsin-Auburn 2005, Penn State-Kentucky 1998 and others. What this suggests then is a cyclical nature to college football that runs afoul of a rather silly notion of conference superiority inherent in the territory it occupies. It’s important we get over the latter, but it doesn’t seem likely. While those years from 1998 to 2005 were rather pedestrian, the current run (2006, 2007), while offering only two years for observation, have been very good for the SEC. The only difference is that with the former case, SEC schools have quietly taken measures to rectify the cupcake problem, generally speaking. With the latter case, the SEC has not been bashful in letting everybody know about it. Then again, who would want to boast about the Zook Gators, the 2004 LSU Tigers, the 2006 Sugar Bowl and the 2006 Capital One Bowl anyways?

CLAIM: Big 10 teams are weak-willed clubfoots that can’t hang with the SEC. Must be that there SEC Speed.
My Take: First, regarding the speed thing, either measure it and thus make it falsifiable or shut the hell up about it. There is nothing about that proposition (of speed) that defies measurement, and thus it would be important to measure it and prove its causal relationship with the SEC’s performance in games or stop talking about it as if it were real. That said, in its current format, the SEC has an undeniable advantage over the Big 10 with respect to wins and losses that remains as such even factoring out the Indiana-Kentucky series. However, there’s certainly a few wrinkles to this empirical data that become apparent when we think of it substantively. First, the Big 10 is +1 in the bowl matchups against the SEC since the BCS. Second, proponents of this claim are clearly getting caught up over the Buckeyes’ noticeable 0fer against SEC schools in their matchups (Georgia 1992, Alabama 1994, Tennessee 1995, S Carolina 2000-01, Florida 2006, LSU 2007). And, of course, while we’re none too thrilled with having to hear it, citing that statistic as incontrovertible proof of SEC domination over the Big 10 misses the point that, well, there are other teams in the Big 10. Georgia has beat Purdue 2 times out of 2 since 1992, and yet Penn State has beaten almost every SEC school it got in this period — and often in a blowout, losing only twice in total to Auburn and Florida. Michigan has lost twice in the Big 10-SEC matchups — once to Alabama and in a lopsided affair to Tennessee — but has beaten Florida twice, Alabama, Arkansas, and Auburn. To be perfectly blunt, now: Ohio State’s past two bowl game boners are absolutely dominating the conversation about Big 10 vs SEC as a whole. If Ohio State’s donut against the SEC serves as adequate grounds for evaluating the Big 10-SEC matchups, then that would definitely be precedent for asking an even more curious question: why can’t the SEC beat Minnesota (Arkansas, Alabama) and why can’t they hang with that 1,000 Lakes Speed (TM)?

CLAIM: Auburn got hosed in 2004. They made it through the SEC, the toughest conference in college football, unscathed and got denied a shot at a national title.
My Take: It is really, really hard to sympathize with this claim when all things are considered. With 3 undefeated teams in the 2004 season, and only 2 to play for a national title, how do you not leave Auburn out? USC has a noble reputation of playing anybody that will play it and, thus, started its 2004 campaign in a roadie against Virginia Tech (played at FedEx Field, alas). Oklahoma at least had Oregon from the Pac-10 scheduled, though they were only a 5 win team for that season. Even then, while USC earns national respect for playing anybody and everybody, and while Oklahoma at least had a nonconference BCS team on the register, Auburn was staying home and getting fat on 5 win UL Monroe, 6 win Louisiana Tech and 3 win 1-AA Citadel. All this from a team that, for that year, played in the 5th ranked conference in college football with a strength of schedule (in Auburn’s case) in the 50s, perhaps playing a USC team that ripped it apart the year prior in Auburn 23-0. Granted, the use of a result the year prior to predict a result now is problematic, but what can be uncovered by a more longitudinal understanding of SEC performance is that the SEC was probably not nearly as good that year as it would have you think.

1. Notre Dame-Vanderbilt 1995,1996; Virginia-Auburn 1998; Navy-Vanderbilt 2004; Louisville-Kentucky 2005; WVU-Miss State 2006; Mizzou-Ole Miss [↩]
2. for a laugh, check out the Big 10′s average strength of schedule in 1995. Not germane, but still worth looking at [↩]