If you want to run a report on the SEC Conference, a likely starting place is Tuscaloosa, considering their rich history and tradition.  But, life inside the BCS era hasn’t been good to the Crimson Tide. 

A once proud program under the direction of legendary coach Bear Bryant, the boys from Bama-ville have won 12 national titles, 25 conference championships and 21 SEC championships.  The program holds NCAA records with 55 post-season bowl appearances, winning 31 bowl games, and has recorded (28) ten win seasons.  The Tide leads the SEC West Division with 5 appearances in the SEC Championship game.

The State of Alabama Football

    However, since the 1999 season when Alabama (10-3) went on to win their last of the five SEC Championships, with a 34-7 victory over the Florida Gators, things have been awfully quiet for its legion of fans.

    The icon of the program is their fierce rivalry with Auburn, one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports, but they haven’t beaten the Tigers since 2001, although nearly every game during this time span has been decided by a touchdown or less.  Since the BCS era began in 1998, the Crimson Tide have only appeared in and won one SEC title and have only appeared in one BCS bowl game.

    This creates a major contrast between history and tradition, and the actual performance that is taking place in modern day.  The numbers tell us why.  This is a program that can play with any of the giants in the great college game, but due to the simplicity of their offense and their inability to score of late, the once mighty program can also play down to the level of many non-BCS and tradition starved programs as well.

    In the last ten years, all inside the BCS era, the Tide is 4-9 versus BCS opponents (outside of the SEC) and 22-6 versus non-BCS opponents.  With a 70-54 overall record during the era, if you take this 22-6 record versus many of the lower-tier programs (like Middle Tennessee, Southern Miss, Utah State or North Texas) out of the equation, this program has a losing record (48-48).

Here is the statistical breakdown for the Crimson Tide:

    This past season was a microcosm for their decade of ineptitude as they defeated Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, yet played down in the opinion of many, losing to Louisiana-Monroe.  If you look at their scores, like many throughout the BCS era, the Tide is but a whisker away from a ten (plus) win season, but at the same time, is but a whisker away from a four-to-six win season as well. 

    A bit of advice might be to stay off the roller-coaster, a common coaching theme which rewards consistent performance rather than playing up and down to opponents.

    For example, the Tide beat Houston by seven, yet lost to Louisiana-Monroe by seven.  The Tide beat Mississippi by three, yet lost to Georgia by three.  The Tide beat Arkansas and Vanderbilt by a total of 17 points, yet lost to Florida State and Louisiana State by a total of 14 points. 

    The common denominator determining the success of the Tide was the winning tendency of the opponent.  In 2007, when matched-up against programs with winning records (7 plus wins) the Tide was 3-5.  When matched up against teams with losing records (less than 7 wins) the Tide rolled to a 4-1 record, even though one of the wins was against Division I-AA Western Carolina. 

    This has been a consistent pattern throughout the BCS era.  As a matter of fact, in the three seasons where the Tide has had a winning record against programs with seven plus wins, they went on to record 10 win seasons.  Three out of ten may be a great average in baseball, but in college football it spells mediocrity.

    Now for the juicy part.  Alabama has, not only a porous record versus BCS opponents (4 - 9), but a sub-par Bowl record to boot, and to make matters worse, they are barely above the .500 mark inside the SEC Conference in the last decade as well:

Alabama versus the SEC inside the BCS era.

1. 1. 

   

     0 - 3
   
2. 2. 

   

     3 - 2
   
3. 3. 

   

     3 - 7
   
4. 4. 

   

     3 - 7
   
5. 5. 

   

     3 - 7
   
6. 6. 

   

     5 - 5
   
7. 7. 

   

     8 - 2
   
8. 8. 

   

     2 - 2
   
9. 9. 

   

     6 - 4
   

    Here’s the kicker.  If you take Vanderbilt and Mississippi out of the equation (the two teams who have struggled the most throughout the era of the BCS), the Tide has garnered a meager 27 - 37 record, compounded by the fact that their record against the top-four teams in the conference within the era of the BCS (Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and LSU) is an atrocious 9 - 19.  Add Arkansas and Auburn to the mix, which equals the top-six performing teams from the SEC inside the BCS era and the record plummets even further, 17-31.

    The conclusion all competent college football fans should come to grips with is that Alabama is going to beat the bottom five teams in the conference (South Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Mississippi) and three non-conference opponents from the MAC, Sun-Belt or C-USA (likely Southern Miss, Middle Tennessee or North Texas) to complete their 8 win season.  How in the world can this be considered elite?

    If Alabama isn’t beating the top-tier BCS non-conference opponents, and they are not beating the top-tier opponents inside the SEC, someone please remind me again how Alabama’s performance provides the SEC with that air of superiority?  The answer:  It doesn’t!  It is marketing hyperbole which plays right into the entire BCS philosophy of determining BCS and upper-tier bowl berths.

    At a school where 85,000 people show up for the spring game, I would expect a better performance against quality opponents.  Equally concerning is the fact that they have only played 13 BCS Conference opponents during the BCS era, which is unacceptable for such a big time program.   In comparison, Florida State has played 35, USC has played 27, Michigan has played 25 and  Oklahoma has played 19. 

    For a program that ranks sixth in the all-time NCAA win-loss records (783 wins) and fifth in the all-time Final AP Poll appearances, it is time to quit living in the past for history and tradition does not define the current state of the Crimson Tide Football Program. 

BCS Busters Grade for the BCS Decade:  D

(35-49 versus winning programs, 35-5 versus losing programs, 4-9 versus BCS opponents and 3-4 in bowl games pretty much says it all).

    It has been a tale of reciprocity in the State of Alabama.  At almost the exact moment that one program falters, the other begins to rise.  Therefore, this is an ample characterization when describing the two programs.  Both are steeped in tradition, but neither have been dominant at the national level during the same season.

     The history and tradition of both programs is ultra  impressive, on their own merits alone, but sometimes the numbers do not give us the complete story, especially since the national media is focused on their glorified past.

    The Tigers have had 77 winning seasons, 34 bowl appearances, (24) nine-plus win seasons, eleven undefeated seasons and 10 conference championships.  They have won 6 SEC Conference titles and three trips to the SEC Championship game itself.

    The 2004 season still draws the ire of the SEC as Auburn was left out of the BCS Championship equation when USC and Oklahoma, who were also undefeated (like the Tigers at 12-0), played for the title.

    When breaking down the numbers we can begin to see why the Tigers were so agitated.   According to the BCS Busters Quality Opponent Factor Rankings, where we rank how the teams performed against 9 (plus) win opponents, winning opponents (greater than 7 wins) and losing opponents (.500 or less) it should have been USC and Auburn in the BCS tile tilt.

    Both USC and Auburn played at least four teams who won at least nine games that season, and although both the Trojans and Tigers played 8 opponents who had losing records, the Sooners only played three opponents all season who had, elite, 9 win seasons and a similar six opponents who were under the five-hundred mark in winning percentage.

    I give the nod to Auburn, especially telling since the Sooners were blasted 55-19 by USC in the BCS title game that season.  But that was the benchmark year for the program, because throughout the BCS era, the Tigers have been under .500 when competing against the elite, or even those programs with winning records.  They have been impressive, 49-1, against the programs on their slate who had losing records so that impressive overall winning percentage is a bit misleading. 

    Unlike Alabama, they have stayed off the roller-coaster and have dominated their instate rivals, winning six straight since 2001, by an average margin of just 7.8 points, emphasizing the competitiveness of the rivalry.

    This is where the numbers begin to turn against the Tigers.  What looks impressive on paper (83-41) becomes less impressive in reality when you consider that the Tigers have a losing record during the BCS era when playing programs with winning records (34-40).  If you take the 24-0 record versus non-BCS teams out of the equation, Auburn is 59-41, which puts this elite program into the mediocre category.

    Auburn has played 18 BCS opponents outside of the SEC, but they still fall below the .500 level (8-10).  But like Alabama above, when compared to the other notable BCS teams from other conferences, West Virginia has played 27 BCS opponents, Virginia Tech has played 22, Texas has played 21 and with one less opportunity to schedule a BCS opponent, in each of the last three years alone, Oregon has played 18 BCS opponents, wining 10, ultimately outperforming Auburn in the same time span. 

    Only Auburn’s bowl record falls above the .500 mark (5-4) inside the BCS era, when considering elite performance.  If you, or I for that matter, immediately thought of Auburn and Oregon, how many of us would rank Oregon above Auburn when those two names first come to mind?

    The average SEC fan would say that Auburn has beaten Clemson, Virginia Tech, Penn State and Wisconsin.  Oregon can counter with Michigan (twice), Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Texas.  Who has the edge?  You be the judge!

    The most telling statistic is the Quality Opponent Factor Rating.  Auburn has only finished with a winning record on two occasions when matched up against the elite 9 win programs;  2006 when they finished 11-2 (3-2 QOF Record) and 2004 when they finished 13-0 (5-0 QOF Record) and should have played for the national title.  This is the glaring stat to consider:  The Tigers have a losing record versus the elite in eight out of the ten seasons since the inception of the BCS, and yet the national media is  convinced that the SEC is clearly the best conference in the country.  This is classic “media frenzied” hyperbole.

    This theory (especially considering the QOF-Factor) becomes even more conclusive when you analyze how the Tigers have performed inside the mighty SEC against its elite counterparts.

1. 1. 

   

     5 - 5
   
2. 2. 

   

     3 - 5
   
3. 3. 

   

     3 - 2
   
4. 4. 

   

     5 - 5
   
5. 5. 

   

     5 - 5
   
6. 6. 

   

     7 - 3
   
7. 7. 

   

     8 - 2
   
8. 8. 

   

     2 - 0
   
9. 9. 

   

     6 - 4
   

    When you dive inside the numbers Auburn’s record against the Top-four (Georgia, Florida, LSU and Tennessee) is 16 - 17.  When adding Arkansas and Alabama to the mix, the record jumps to 28 - 25.  When adding the bottom five to the mix, the record mushrooms to 23-6. 

    Therefore, the reality of the SEC is that there are four elite programs (Georgia, Florida, LSU and Tennessee) and two average programs in Arkansas and Alabama, and then five meager programs that have not established a winning tradition inside the SEC, outside the SEC or within the bowl tradition (South Carolina, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Kentucky and Vanderbilt)

    I have made a big point in emphasizing that the strength of the SEC is a bit overblown, but these numbers actually blew me away.  I was expecting the numbers to be a little better than they actually are.  The power of television, which has created such a branding identity, in many cases, is greater than the actual on field performance, which is the root cause of this phenomenon and most certainly sways pollsters who control the destiny behind the BCS.

    On the bright side, Auburn has lost only one time to a team with a losing record (4-7 LSU in 1998) within the era of the BCS.  That, is extremely impressive, along with the fact that among their 10 BCS non-conference losses, only three have come to programs with less than nine wins:

    (8-5) UNC in 2001

    (7-6) Georgia Tech in 2003

    (7-5) Georgia Tech in 2005

 

BCS Busters Grade for the BCS Decade:  B

If Auburn expects to dominate the polls and the SEC Conference, they need to step up to the plate and start scheduling more BCS non-conference opponents instead of scheduling Division I-AA, the Sun-Belt and Conference USA.

In Part II of this Six-Part Series, I will breakdown the only two programs in the SEC who have truly been elite throughout the BCS era:  Georgia and Florida.  LSU and Tennessee have been above average, but I wouldn’t classify their performance as elite throughout the entire era of the BCS.

Even though LSU has won two BCS titles inside the era, and Tennessee has won one, you will soon find out that the hype surrounding the SEC is a bit overblown, but that doesn’t necessarily make this a poor conference.  Just not as elite as many would lead us to believe.