It is simply harder within the SEC. No less than that’s what the SEC desires you to consider.
In the event you, for some purpose, don’t consider, simply ask any SEC group, tremendous fan or affiliated media member and they’re going to fortunately let you know that the SEC is simply constructed completely different, and that groups from different conferences merely couldn’t hack it taking part in their schedule.
That speaking level reached a boiling level within the wake of this yr’s School Soccer Playoff discipline as Alabama, South Carolina and Ole Miss had been all unnoticed of the sphere — all with three losses — in favor of one-loss groups from the ACC and Large Ten like SMU and Indiana.
When the latter groups had been handed decisive losses of their opening spherical playoff video games, it solely strengthened the noise about how the three-loss SEC ought to have been in and the way they had been higher groups.
It turned a combat of hypotheticals. What if Indiana performed South Carolina’s schedule? What if Alabama performed SMU’s schedule? What would Ole Miss do to the ACC?
That noise ought to have been silenced, and emphatically so, on Tuesday when Michigan and No. 20 Illinois handed No. 11 Alabama and No. 15 South Carolina losses of their bowl video games, delivering a humbling blow to the SEC and its obvious superiority.
It is not that the SEC is not an incredible convention. It’s. It’s historically one of many strongest conferences within the nation and usually has among the finest groups and prime nationwide championship contenders.
However generally the hype will get uncontrolled, and generally too many individuals related to the convention overlook that it’s not the one one which issues. Profitable video games there may be not the end-all and be-all for aggressive soccer.
Different conferences can compete. Different groups can compete. Particularly within the fashionable period of faculty soccer.
Whereas the switch portal and the rise of NIL have some actual flaws and points which might be worthy of being put beneath a microscope, there’s something else these new components have finished to school soccer — they’ve dramatically and considerably closed the hole between the top-tier groups and the second-tier groups.
The SEC’s total efficiency in bowl video games this season helps illustrate that, with Oklahoma (to Navy), Tennessee (to Ohio State), Alabama (to Michigan), Texas A&M (to USC) and South Carolina (to Illinois) all dropping video games they had been favored to win.
Simply think about if No. 2 Georgia loses to No. 7 Notre Dame on Wednesday, or if No. 14 Ole Miss loses to Duke within the Gator Bowl on Thursday.
The School Soccer Playoff is much from good, and it might probably get annoying utilizing the results of each playoff recreation and bowl recreation as a referendum on each resolution that will get made. However for all of these flaws, and for the entire strengths the SEC has, it’s awfully tough for anyone to maintain arguing that Alabama, South Carolina or Ole Miss received robbed by not being in.
Particularly after the previous two already misplaced their fourth video games of the season to second-tier Large Ten groups.
The SEC is nice. It isn’t above all people else. Anyone needed to humble them and knock them down a peg. Michigan and Illinois did an incredible job of that on Tuesday.
