Only two weeks ago, the Southeastern Conference was dead in the water. The conference's chance of winning a coveted seventh straight football national championship was over. With three unbeaten teams remaining, it was apparent 'The King' was dead. If only two of the three -- Notre Dame, Kansas State, or Oregon -- finished the college football season unbeaten, the SEC would be relegated to lesser bowl games in December and January. The run of championships was over.
Well it didn't happen. On a mid-November Saturday night, Kansas State fell to 5-loss Baylor in blowout fashion and the Oregon Ducks stubbed their webbed toes at home against Stanford. That sequence swung the national title door wide open again and now 'The King' is ready to regain the throne.
Now to be quite honest, the SEC has not enjoyed it's greatest season. The bottom half of the conference has been miserable. Kentucky, Missouri, Auburn, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Ole Miss have all been pretty bad, but no worse than the bottom feeders of the SEC's rival leagues. Also, there are identifiable flaws in the league's top three national championship contenders. Alabama, Georgia, and Florida have each stumbled, but most people now agree that Notre Dame belongs in the national championship game because they have remained unbeaten and have taken on notable opponents from most of the remaining conferences. With that said, here is what again validates the SEC. Alabama or Georgia will be favored in Miami against Notre Dame. And if the Gators get in, they will be facing one of the other two from the SEC. Odds-makers do not care about conference affilliation. They set odds to balance the betting sides and they do not miss outright most of the time. In fact, greater point spreads predict greater accuracy in predicting winners. So it looks like a near-lock for another SEC national crown.
In reality, it is a down year across the nation in finding a dominant team. Let's not forget, USC (No. 1) and Oklahoma (No. 5) were in the top five when the season began. Now the Sooners have two losses (ranked No. 14) and the Trojans are completely out of the poll with four losses. To their credit, only the Irish have taken care of business and can head into a championship game without challengers to their rightful spot in Miami. For all the rest, a berth in the title game comes with questions of worth.
The run of six consecutive national titles yields merit in an overall down year, and it's not just one SEC team doing all the winning. So if a conference gets the 'benefit of doubt', it is the SEC. Let's not forget, the conference didn't get it's reputation by simply playing in national championship games. It won them. And the conference has only placed two teams in the championship game once. It just happened to be last year and is at the forefront of many minds. In this run of titles, LSU, Florida, Auburn, and Alabama have each lifted the crystal ball and Georgia had claim to a title game spot in 2007 but LSU was awarded the slot and beat Ohio State for the championship.
SEC critics, who were celebrating two weeks ago when the conference appeared locked out of a title chance, are now screaming the same old complaints. Some claim the media (ESPN and CBS in particular) is so biased that it influences poll voters. Still others claim the SEC has 'cracked the BCS computer code' by scheduling weak, non-conference foes and building in those games late in the season.
The media influence argument is a slap in the face to voters. Only one of the human polls is totally media based -- the AP -- and not all of those media representatives have ties with CBS or ESPN. In fact, most are with rival or competing media outlets. Are all those media voters 'brainwashed' by the hype of other people in their own business?
The other two polls are comprised of different personnel. The Coaches' Poll is made up of coaches representing all conferences and regions of the country and the Harris Poll is comprised of over 100 former coaches, players, media, and administrators with statistically reliable representation of all 11 conferences and independents. So it is silly to claim the polls favor the SEC due to some economic conspiracy.
If we want to look at voter bias by coaches, studies have already been conducted. The United States Sports Academy results showed that all coaches between 2005 and 2010 voted with some bias for their own team and their own conference (1-3 poll positions), but coaches at SEC schools showed no significantly greater variation from the mean and final results than coaches in the ACC, B1G, or Big 12 and less bias than coaches in the WAC, MWC, and Pac-12.
Regarding the computers and scheduling, the SEC has no monopoly on scheduling weaker, non-conference opponents. Let's just look at the contenders (Top 10 BCS) from other conferences this year. Oregon's out of conference schedule included Arkansas State, Fresno State, and Tennessee Tech. Kansas State played Missouri State and North Texas (I'll give them credit for Miami -- most years). Stanford took out Duke and San Jose State before losing on a controversial goal line call at Notre Dame. Florida State rolled up wins over Murray State, Savannah State, and South Florida. They have in-state rival Florida remaining. So if the BCS computer code has been cracked with schedule timing, is this an admission that SEC coaches and athletic directors are just smarter than the rest of the country when it comes to scheduling? Maybe the SEC has developed a scheduling model that powers from other conferences should copy.
Now back to the most likely BCS National Championship scenarios.
It is an obvious result, but studies have shown that the greater the point spread by oddsmakers -- the greater their accuracy in predicting the outright winner. In other words, a 31-point favorite actually wins a game 98.7 percent of the time while a 3 or less-point favorite actually wins the game 51.1% of the time. Since covering the Vegas point spread is not a requirement for winning the national championship, the projected point spread is a pretty good indicator of the expected winner. Here's the latest I could find from oddsmakers regarding the current contenders and pending games:
Notre Dame opened as a 7-point favorite over USC (oddsmaker accuracy = 65.9%)
Alabama is a 31-point favorite over Auburn (oddsmaker accuracy = 98.7%)
Georgia is a 13-point favorite over Georgia Tech (oddsmaker accuracy = 79.9%)
Florida State is an 8-point favorite over Florida (oddsmaker accuracy = 73.6%)
Alabama is a 7-point favorite to eliminate Georgia (oddsmaker accuracy = 65.9%)
Alabama is a 10-point favorite if they meet Notre Dame (oddsmaker accuracy = 74.6%)
Georgia is a 1-point favorite if they meet Notre Dame (oddsmaker accuracy = 51.1%)
NOTE: Should Notre Dame and Florida both lose this week, the opponent for the SEC Champion would likely be a one-loss Oregon, one-loss Kansas State, one-loss Notre Dame, or one-loss Florida State.
There you have it, in all likelihood we will watch Alabama roll past Notre Dame for the SEC's seventh consecutive national championship in January and the case for all the 'left out' one-loss teams will continue to be debated. The best news for college football fans, however, is none of those percentages listed above are 100%. Stealing a Jim Carey line from the film 'Dumb and Dumber', "So you're telling me there's a chance! . . . Yeah!"
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