Alabama held on by a string all year. It's a miracle that they were in the top four instead of TCU. They shouldn't have been.

* correction, SEC ranked teams are 2-5. I apologize for the confusion. To be fair it is understandable since such a horrid showing begs the question of how 7 SEC teams are even ranked

ha, Alabama got killed, not as much as ole miss but still

Alabama didn't get killed, they just got beat. They actually stayed impressively close considering how much better OSU played.

Florida State got killed but everyone knew that was going to happen.

there is a word for people who almost win, come very close, tried their hardest but just barely lost. That word is loser.

I mean here's the deal. The playoff system is the death of the SEC myth. Basically 2000-2010 the SEC and its biggest fan, ESPN, built this myth that SEC was a cut above the best. This was reinforced when SEC teams refused to play quality opponents and expected their one loss champion to have a spot championship game. Now they have to win 2 quality games to win the trophy I expect this myth will finally die long the perks that come with it. That is until ESPN realizes their cash cow is suffering and the tournament starts getting 2 SEC teams each year.

What do you mean, "myth" that the SEC was best? It clearly was from, say, 2006-2013, though not this year. The SEC usually had winning bowl records and usually won national title games decisively.

To double post, while the SEC's bowl record is not as strong as it has been in years past, it doesn't mean that the SEC is a weak conference.

Against power conference teams, based on conference records:

SEC's #1 team Alabama lost to the Big 10's #1 team, Ohio State
SEC's #2 team Missouri beat the Big 10's #4 (tied) team, Minnesota
SEC's #3 (tied) team Georgia beat the ACC's #4 (tied) team, Louisville
SEC's #3 (tied) team Mississippi State lost to the ACC's #2 (tied) team, Georgia Tech
SEC's #5 team, Ole Miss, lost to the Big 12's #1 (tied) team, TCU
SEC's #6 (tied) team, Auburn, lost to the Big 10's #2 (tied) team, Wisconsin
SEC's #9 (tied) team, South Carolina, beat ACC's #9 (tied) team, Miami
SEC's #9 (tied) team, Texas A&M, beat the Big 12's #4 (tied) team, West Virginia
SEC's #9 (tied) team, Tennessee, beat the Big 10's #6 (tied) team, Iowa
SEC's #12 team, Arkansas, beat the Big 12's #4 (tied) team, Texas

So, while the SEC has not had a great schedule, it's only lost a single game (Alabama's upset loss to OSU) to a team that's ranked even or better in conference standings. Yeah, the Big 12's #1 team beat the SEC's fifth best team pretty badly; I assume Alabama would beat North Carolina or Nebraska similarly. A Big 10 division winner, Wisconsin, needed overtime to beat the SEC West's (deeply, deeply flawed, I say as an Auburn fan) fourth-ranked team; way to go, I guess.

I think they need to move to 8 teams quickly. MSU, Baylor, TCU, all deserved to have a shot at the title. 5 conference champs -- Big 12 needs to go back to a Chmp. game -- and 3 at large teams.

Quack-12 FTW.

The self-esteem people attach to random alignments of university sports teams is rather mind boggling.

Don't recall ever attaching my self esteem to the Big Ten

You attach quite a lot in not being in the SEC. Who cares?

Does it count as a callout thread if the OP never actually attributes anything to the person being called out?

Hey PE, LSU was shit all season

(not OP, but does that count?)

I think you are reaching Putin. Normal.

I think you're pathetic Santa. Normal.

Normally I laugh at all the teams calling them foolish and weak and inferior to soccer, but my sister goes to Arkansas so now i have an opinion on stuff. it is kinda annoying

I really hate the 14 conference schedule...6 divisional games, 2 non-divisional games (in the SEC one of these is a rivalry game), and 4 non-conference games. BTW, when was the last time Tennessee beat Alabama in a rivalry game? I think that FBS (top five conferences only) should not be able to schedule FCS games. SEC should do away with rivalry games. Make them play at least two other top five conferences for their non-conference games. SEC-Wet played 28 non-conference games, seven vs FCS, 5 Sun Belt, 1 Mid-Amer, 7 CUSA, 2 MtW, 2 AAC, 3 Big 12, 1 BIG 10. Only four of those games (Wisconsin, West Virginia, Kansas St, Texas Tech) against the other four top conferences, but did not play Pac 12, ACC, or Notre Dame/BYU. Not an impressive list. Contrast that to the SEC-East who played seven other top conference games (Clemson twice, Florida St, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Indiana, Oklahoma).

Now that we have more data points with the bowl games, look who Sagarin has as the #1 team... http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/sagarin

An 8 team playoff would be good, but a 16 team playoff would be better. That would add 12 quality playoff games that could replace the weak bowl games the first two weeks of the bowl season. Does anyone really watch the Gildan, Potato, or the GoDaddy Bowls?

14 Team conference schedule.

"I think that FBS (top five conferences only) should not be able to schedule FCS games."

Fully agree here. Been saying it for years. I think that the rule should be "Games played against FCS teams do *not* count in terms of eligibility for College Football Playoff bowl games."

That means anyone can schedule against FCS teams, but if they win, it doesn't count toward the magical 6 wins required to become bowl eligible.

Of course, the big problem with this is that people who run bowl games won't like it because there are fewer "cupcake" wins to pad the win column so there are fewer bowl eligible teams and less tax-free money to be made.

Ouch Putin, you hurt my feelings. I'm like fearless leader Kim Jong-Un after an American stoner comedy.

@gf yep, worst LSU team in the Miles tenure imo. At least in 08 there was reason for optimism next year. there's so much uncertainty around the program right now that you can't really say the same

and yeah SC, the SEC was not especially good this year. I would probably rate it 2nd behind the Pac, especially if Oregon wins it all.

but I think there's a couple of statements that are really off-base here:
1. Alabama wasn't lucky to be in the playoff. The team that proved it didn't belong was Florida State. Alabama lost a close and competitive game to Ohio State, FSU got blown the hell out. Right now if we're redoing it and have to take a team out, then FSU is out and TCU is in.
2. I'm not sure TCU should necessarily be in. I'd probably put them in over FSU, but it is pretty dishonest to act like it was a sure thing that TCU should have been in back in December.
3. 8 team expansion is good, 16 would be really bad. You want to have all the teams that deserve to be in and as few extra teams as possible. That's why 8 is better than 4 - because 4 can't get all the teams that deserve to be in often enough - but why 8 is probably best - because it's very rare not to have all the deserving teams in the top 8, and 8 minimizes the number of nondeserving teams. 6 might also work, but I have a feeling that 6 is going to take the 5 conference champs + 1 extra, which works some years (like this year) but might not in others. 8 would be 5 champs + 3 which should cover all deserving teams IMO

@PE...Why is 16 bad? FCS has a 20 team playoff. NFL has a 12 team playoff with only 32 teams. Texas HS football 6A D1 has a 64 team playoff. NCAA basketball sends 68 teams to March Madness. What could be bad about the top sixteen teams in a playoff. It gives us 12 additional quality games. I guess you are the one watching the Potato and GoDaddy bowls.

I would love to see a team put up four quality wins in a row to claim championship status.

Can you imagine the NFL playoffs with just NE vs Denver and Seattle vs Green Bay followed by the Super Bowl? This year it was TCU, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Boise St and a few more that would have given us some excitement the first two weeks of a 16 team playoff.

You cant do 16, some of those students, believe it or not, are actually students, and if you put division one intensity into potentially 4 extra games, you will run these kids into the ground. I think the 4 is fine. 8 in my opinion is already too much.

Basically if you did 16 teams, even 8, you would HAVE to lessen the regular season. And honestly, as a fan of a team that likely won't make the playoffs in about 15 years, I don't want to see one less regular season game so the biggest of the big boys can play one extra, I'm sure students probably would feel the same.

@SantaClausowitz...FCS (yes they are in college too) plays a 12 game season and has a 20 team playoff. Those teams that don't get a first round bye, could play up to five playoff games if they make it to their Championship game. If it is acceptable for FCS to have a 20 team playoff, why can't we expect FBS to attempt something more than 4? Do you really think the top college players consider themselves students?

FCS is nothing like FBS in quality (read hits, injuries, etc.), FCS also doesn't have the same conference alignment and numbers as FBS.

And yes, I do think many top college players consider them students, I have had some as students and not only did they consider themselves students they were good at it. That argument is ignorant drivel and always has been. Are there many there purely for football? sure, But besides the cream of all the lineups, there are a majority of students who know they will not be able to make a living for long in the NFL and see their studies as the best way out. Even if you talk about the elite of the elite, academic successes are out there in the open. Calvin Johnson almost stayed a year more in GT, not to hone his skills but to finish an engineering project he was personally assisting a professor with. Myron Rolle was a Rhode Scholar. Your question is ignorant and the answer is "Yes" some do.

Hey SantaClausowitz...So since the FCS has "fewer" hits and injuries, they can afford to play more games in a 20 man playoff? What about their academics?

I applaud the current college student/athlete and his/her ability to juggle academics and athletics. Always love to here about the redshirt senior that is working on his masters degree.

Now, please give me some qualified reasons why FCS can have a 20 team playoff and FBS only has 4. According to Jeff Sagarin Ratings http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/sagarin/ there are 14 FCS teams ranked in the Top 100. The two playing for the FCS Championship on 10 January, N. Dakota St and Illinois St are ranked 32 and 41 respectively, well ahead of many bowl eligible FBS teams.

Big money athletics has completely corrupted the university system. How a top rated university like UNC-Chapel Hill became a cesspool of academic fraud in order to pass their "student"-athletes is terrifying. Athletic programs pay these buffoon coaches millions of dollars per year while they cut academic programs. Whole communities convince themselves to look the other way as their sports heroes engage in sexual abuse, because nobody can say anything about their 'heroes'.

It's a symptom of everything that is wrong with America. Athletics needs to be gutted from the university level. Form a developmental league for these people who want to beat their heads in for middle class white people's entertainment.

"I'm like fearless leader Kim Jong-Un after an American stoner comedy."

All we need is for you to call everybody an anti-Semite and we got the prototypical webdiplomacy thread.

@Putin33, great idea, but it will never happen. Like you said...it is all about the big bucks. Universities can't afford to cancel their football programs. And what would they do with those million dollar stadiums if they did?

BTW, Major League Baseball has a very robust farm system, but college baseball programs still exist and produce many good baseball players.

That's because baseball is a skill sport which requires players to develop over a lengthy period of time. You need to pay your dues and develop in the minors for a while before you get a shot. Even Mike Trout, considered the best player in baseball right now, spent about 3 years in the minors before getting to the MLB level.

UAB just cut their fairly successful football program. Only the biggest football programs make any money, when all is said and done, from these sports. The people making the money are Las Vegas and the corporate sponsors.

Not sure you can call UAB successful.

Well they were cut despite being bowl eligible this year. I said fairly successful. They weren't exactly a program that was never winning games.

Yeah, absolutely, we already have the other ingredients for a Webdip thread, you coming in and flaming for no apparent reason, calling large quantities of people rapists and yet again claiming falsely that I call everyone an anti-Semite. Same old keyboard tough guy back to take out his academic frustrations.

UAB has had only 4 winning seasons in their 19 season history of Div I-A (FBS) football and 1 winning season (this year) over the past 10 seasons. Not my definition of "fairly successful" program.

Winning seasons isn't a good metric for a non-power conference football team. They usually throw away 2-3 games per year against the big teams to help finance their programs. Number of bowl games attended (only requires a 6-6 record, not winning), or games > 50% in conference would be more fair metrics.

Ok..one bowl for UAB in 2004, they lost. Bowl eligible this year. You make a good point...they played two SEC-West teams this year. Looks like those two team will have to find other cupcake games. Lot's of teams available in the Sun Belt and CUSA.

SEC-West better pick up its game next season or ESPN might start favoring the SEC-East.

" flaming for no apparent reason"

Because the OP here was crying out for reasoned discourse, right?

"Same old keyboard tough guy back to take out his academic frustrations."

Projection much?

"claiming falsely that I call everyone an anti-Semite"

'Falsely'.

please...