Congratulations, it’s red pill/blue pill time again! Are we awake now that the darling story of Cincinnati has been told? The college football season found a group of five team to include in the CFP last year – and what did we learn? That Alabama is the truth? We already knew that. Did we figure out that Michigan can be big in the Big Ten; but when it’s time to play big boy football – Georgia SEC’d them into understanding that there are levels to this. No we already kind of saw that coming. What about the national championship game being the SEC championship part two? Definitely not shocked by that one either.
You can wax poetic about Stetson Bennett and Georgia – congratulations to the champs. The Georgia Bulldogs earned their championship the way any real team would. Let’s not bash the SEC for being better than the rest. It’s just as you saw; the top dogs in the SEC are better teams than the top dogs in the other four conferences as currently submitted.
However, the path to your awakening begins with the answer to this: Why are those top SEC teams better? Choose your pill Neo. If you want the truth – it is this: the Alabama’s and Georgia’s of the world succeed in recruiting a body type to play along both lines of scrimmage.
Eyes on television sets gravitate towards the wide receivers, quarterbacks, defensive backs, and the rest of the glamour positions that typically get highlighted. Eyes on the field see the people along the line of scrimmage as being most critical to the success of their team.
Alabama recruits athletic titans along the offensive line that your scheme cannot overcome. Georgia overcame Alabama in part because you will not dictate anything to the dawgs along the line of scrimmage. Their defense, especially in the trenches was lined with real dudes. Cincinnati was overmatched immediately in the CFP along the line of scrimmage; Alabama ran the ball 10 straight times on their opening drive just to make that clear.
And speaking of Alabama, Nick Saban is the reason Alabama’s dominant. Coaching matters a ton in football. You won’t go far without adequate coaching teaching the technical aspects of the game. The reality is – people watch the Super Bowl all over the globe making football a global sport; yet the ability to play it at a high level is extremely regional.
Nationally; you’re only going to find a few offensive and defensive lineman of the type Coach Saban apparently grows on trees. Consider this – being agile, fast, and extremely strong is not typical of what you see from an offensive lineman; it’s just typically what you see from the best offensive lineman. This is the key to the SEC dominance over the rest of the power five conferences. Along the line of scrimmage typically other teams offensive and defensive lineman are not as agile, fast or strong enough in relation to what the SEC trots out on a regular basis.
But don’t be fooled, you will only get this from the top teams in the SEC. We can’t ignore the fact that the SEC fields the best teams in the nation and its top teams compete for national championships regularly. The truth about exactly how dominant the SEC is can be a bit murkier accepted at face value.
All five power conferences are pretty much built the same way when it comes to college football. There are a couple of top teams that stand out among the rest; followed by a bunch of other teams that would continue to get beaten at their current rate if you shuffled them into any one of the five power conferences.
Have you ever noticed how the big bad SEC lives on early-season cupcakes with a late-season FCS snack for everybody? Three or four games against usually severely overmatched opponents. Like they love to say so often – it just means more right? The audacity of a school like USC saying for years and they wouldn’t schedule an FCS opponent. Doesn’t everybody like cupcakes? Apparently not.
The SEC is definitely the best football conference in college sports. The distance between the SEC and the rest of the power five conferences isn’t nearly as big as some might have you believe. Actually the difference between the SEC and the Pac- 12(at least until USC and UCLA leave) is only about the size of the tackle box. The advantage that the top teams in the SEC have can really be explained simply this way: The ability to recruit the ideal body type along the lines of scrimmage is a proximity advantage for the SEC schools.
Several SEC universities happen to exist in places where you’ll find that massive guard or tackle that is fast, extremely strong, and has an aggressive mindset. The skill position players in the SEC are no better than the skill position players in the Pac 12, or the Big Ten. The SEC has the advantage of a line of scrimmage body type that is in short supply in the football world.
Do you think Alabama would’ve called ten straight running plays against the typical conference opponent the way they did against Cincinnati in the College Football Playoff? That’s not meant to demean Cincinnati as an opponent- it’s an indication of how obvious it was to Alabama exactly where their biggest advantage was.
The advantage that the SEC has over the other conferences is built along their line of scrimmage. Until very recently, the three yards and a cloud of dust mentality- lack of innovation on offense had really hamstrung the south eastern conference. The parade of former Trojan coaches that are now in the SEC is an example of what the SEC had to do in order to catch their offenses up to speed. Along those same lines, a parade of West Coast quarterbacks now head the offenses in many of the places that have the top teams.
Eventually the SEC realized that having an elite offensive line is pretty pointless if all you can do is really just run behind it. A dangerous and efficient passing attack is mandatory for a championship contender.
