There are five teams from the SEC there. Auburn isn’t in the top 25. Florida is tenth and finished with 8 losses including one to an FCS team. Georgia has 4 losses. The SEC is good sure but they’re benefiting from a “pass” that other conferences just don’t get.
These are projections for a new season, which are more or less just a carryover from the previous season. They aren’t going to be correct by the end, for the most part. I wouldn’t use that in an argument. However, I see 4 Big 12 teams, and 5 Big 10 teams. Not sure I can pick out anymore off the top of my head, but there’s no bias there. The defending champ is #1 (as they should be, especially after it was a repeat), SC is about where they should be, TAMU was ranked highly after a Heisman winner, Florida ended up having a rare off year, and LSU isn’t far off from where they ended. And looking now, there are 7 SEC teams at the end of the season, so the estimate was conservative.
For frell’s sake. Bama got a shot at the NCG two years ago without even winning their conference. Without even making the conf. championship game to play a team that had already beaten them in an ugly bad football game. Just look back to the talk before the Big Ten conf. championship game this season. They were talking about a one loss Auburn jumping Ohio State. Granted Ohio State lost to the number 1 defense in the country but no one suggested that one loss MSU get to play FSU. Because the Big Ten is “bad” and the SEC is “good.”
Yes, but in 2011 they were unanimously ranked #1, and faced the SEC champs. Who did you want in there instead? Ok. State? And they didn’t play in the SEC championship, because LSU beat them in head to head. They can’t represent the other half of the conference in the championship game, that’s not how the SEC operates. No one thinks the Big 10 is bad, but Auburn has beat higher quality opponents and has a better strength of schedule. Sure, that may seem tautological, but after a season of play, the rankings are far more clear than the preseason projections.
And where was the biggest fount of that – ESPN or rather ESECPN.
The SEC benefits from a bias in perception and they’ve got their share of bad teams like any conference and A&M and Missouri are new arrivals to the SEC but seems to be holding their own quite well.
ESPN obviously goes where the money is, there’s no doubt about that. But it’s not like they don’t talk about the other conferences.
SEC certainly has bad football programs (UK is a basketball school, Florida had a down year, etc.) but they are through and through a football conference. Guess which conference had the best out of conference record this year? That’s right - the SEC.
To be the best, so goes to the old sports adage, you’ve got to beat the best. But since only SEC teams are consistently declared the best, only SEC teams get the chance to prove themselves against “the best.”
It’s a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Does the SEC get favorable rankings because it’s so good? Or is the SEC so good because it gets favorable rankings? I argue for the latter.
I think there is more reason to see the rankings as they are based on teams and interconference gameplay, rather than bias or conspiracy. I haven’t seen an argument for Alabama to be playing Auburn for the BCS, which would give weight to your argument.