Quote:
Originally Posted by Army_of_One  Actually Texas had the 13th ranked strenth of schedule last year. LSU had the 50th toughest schedule, Auburn was 61st in strength, Oklahoma was #1 in schedule strength and Colorado was 6th (another big 12 team). |
Without looking it up, I seem to recall that the Big 12 has been chosen to send a representative to the last 4 BCS championships. Their record is 2-2. In 2003 Oklahoma was going come hell or high water in spite of their loss in their conference championship and they got beat worse than the score indicated by an SEC team with a caretaker quarterback. The next year against an offensive minded only team they had their clocks cleaned. Last year Texas won that game because the same offensive minded team did not have the defensive horses to corrall a quarterback that projects out three years to start at quarterback. My supposition that the top two SEC teams last year (Georgia and LSU) would have had the defensive speed to force Mr. Young into a pocket passing game. There are three SEC teams which have not been able to return to fielding a good team, two of those are in the west division of the SEC so that, IMO, more than anything droves down the strength of schedule
Quote:
Originally Posted by Army_of_One LSU and Auburn only played one game against a top 10 team between the two of them (Auburn) and lost that game. |
Not true, according to a quick and dirty google search, at one time TN was 10th (loss) - and the reason why I think LSU can not run the table this year with road games at Auburn, TN and FLoida, Alabama and Miami at one point last year were in the top 10 and LSU wins. I don;t normally root for Auburn, I am an alumni of LSU but am not overly impressed with their Big 12 import of a head coach and don't think Miles, tho a nice guy, can't get it done witness their readiness in the 2005 SEC championship game. Auburn, as much as it loathes me, got screwed in 2004 and I think they would have handled USC handily and look to be very tough this year. My season gets made or broke on 9/16 when they match up.
The one thing I will give the Big 12 and Big 10 is their power schools have sustainability. LSU has a history of getting good then regressing to the bottom tier, their run started with 2001, major hiccups in 2002 (yes I remember the cotton bowl) and then the past three years have been good for the most part.
Either way, those schools play defense. And when it push comes to shove they play a very good defense. USC has not played one school during its glory run with a capable defense and ratings aside, last year was a down year overall for the Big 12 in terms of Texas realling getting a challenge in the conference. I just don't think an SEC school can make an undefeated run given the schedule and schools within the conference which makes it easier to run up the rankings elsewhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Army_of_One You can argue all day long but we'll see what happens. . |
Sheesh, I'm two hours south of Notre Dame and three hours west of Columbus OH, I'm having enough fun with those schools' here. But I won't argue, and I've already posted twice now an SEC school can't reach the BCS plateau without lots of things going right, I will put a case of Bell's Big Two Hearted Ale up in a wager that one of the four projected top tier SEC schools in 2006 will have better BCS stats than the Big 12 leader. That's LSU, Auburn, Georgia and Florida against any of the big 12 teams. Delivered right to your door if I loose.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Army_of_One Fact is that in the BCS standings for this year the SEC doesn't have a team in the top 5. WOW. They haven't beaten up on each other yet and still don't have a top 5 team. |
Fact is no one has a team in the top 5 BCS rankings, the BCS rankings don't come out until sometime in October. Auburn is ranked in the top five in the Coaches and AP polls and the SEC has three schools in the top 10 in both polls.