Sometimes, the story of the SEC seems bigger than life. The SEC, a collegiate athletics conference that boasts the best football in the United States. SEC life is a cultural movement powered by frenzied fan bases and the fact that football is more popular than ever before.
Unfortunately the SEC ruined football, specifically, college football. From realignment to being the media darlings for over a decade, the obsession with SEC needs to stop for the sake of college athletics. If we can't control the irrational love for this conference, football will continue to decline outside of the SEC world.
The past decade of collegiate football has been dominated by the SEC. The conference simply produces champions. The conference has built a culture that surpasses all others in the sports world. These southern schools (LSU, Texas A&M, Alabama, Florida, Ole Miss, Georgia, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Auburn, South Carolina and Vanderbilt) have produced a massive fan bases that span across the country, and created a gamely culture that no other conference could keep up with.
Highlighting the SEC dominance is easy. The SEC has won seven of the past 10 national championships in the FBS level of college football. Among those years, we saw eras rise and fall. We saw the Tebow era, as the Gators and Tebow stole America's heart with the fire and passion that we could all admire. Specifically, Tebow provided a perspective that many athletes had not. Tebow gave young kids a respectable leader and person to look up to. The Tebow era would be followed by a dominant stretch by the state of Alabama. For four years, the state of Alabama owned the college football world. Three championship teams rolled out of Tuscaloosa and one from Auburn.
With so much success, it's hard to imagine a world without the SEC. Unfortunately, the world has forgotten everyone outside of the SEC. A midst the championship runs, the SEC decided to shake up the NCAA world. Conference realignment, to bolster the SEC, destroyed one of the greatest basketball conferences to exist (Big East), isolated traditionally strong basketball schools (St. Johns, Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, Cincinnati, Providence), and destroyed state rivals (Texas vs. Texas A&M).
The realignment caused other conferences to scramble to pick off remaining teams in order to hold together in the wake of the SEC mutilation. The ACC absorbed Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and Louisville. The Big Ten, a midwestern conference, absorbed West Virginia. Boise State and other smaller schools found few great options to abort to. The PAC 10 became the PAC 12. And finally, all teams let outside of the power five conferences, were left out to fight for a limited amount of TV space and national relevance. This created a culture of "SEC dominance," that made the media fall in love. From then, and continuing today, SEC teams can lose multiple games, only to be ranked higher than undefeated schools. This happening, simply by the virtue of being in the SEC.
Enjoy the SEC this fall. The SEC is the greatest football conference ever created, but remember that other schools exist, and they too can compete with the South Eastern Conference.
