SEC Embarrassingly Hands Out Analytics Research To Support Superiority Arguments
SEC Superiority Remains Unchecked
The SEC has spent much of the past week desperately trying to convince the college football world that all other conferences should bow at their feet.
Their months-long meltdown started at the end of the 2024 season, when Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina were left out of the College Football Playoff because none of them deserved to be included. For the first time in what felt like forever, SEC programs weren't treated as automatically superior. And they seem to have lost their collective minds about it.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said all three teams were among the best in the country, and deserved to be in. Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer complained that he'd love to see how other teams would fare against 6-6 Vanderbilt and 6-6 Oklahoma.
Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko, who runs one of the most consistently and relentlessly mediocre programs in the country, despite extreme financial and recruiting advantages, also implied that the SEC's eight-game conference schedule is simply too difficult, while ignoring that other big-name programs in power conferences often play nine conference games.
READ: Collective Meltdown: Kirby Smart, Mike Elko Join Chorus Of SEC Coaches Demanding Rewards For Losing
It's all been extremely embarrassing, especially after how poorly the SEC performed in bowl season. But the embarrassments weren't over there for the nation's most powerful conference. Oh, no. Not even close.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey. (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images)
SEC Superiority Arguments Don't Hold Water
On the last day of their press conference gauntlet this week, commissioner Greg Sankey and SEC staff gave out a seven-page document to assembled media describing the "regular-season gauntlet" that SEC teams are forced to play. As Brett McMurphy posted, the guide claims that "no other conference has a regular season as grueling as the SEC's."
Hilariously, to arrive at this conclusion, the SEC used advanced-metric ranking systems, which are apparently reliable now. After years of being pilloried by fans and SEC personalities claiming that on-field outcomes are the only things that matter.
But since the SEC decided to go down this path, let us do a quick dive into how the advanced metrics actually handled rankings last season. Particularly ESPN's "Strength of Record," since that was specifically referenced in the propaganda handout.
Well, here's how the teams ranked at the end of the 2024-2025 season by that very same "Strength of Record" metric:
- Ohio State Buckeyes
- Oregon Ducks
- Notre Dame Fighting Irish
- Georgia Bulldogs
- Texas Longhorns
- Penn State Nittany Lions
- BYU Cougars
- Indiana Hoosiers
- Tennessee Volunteers
- LSU Tigers
- Illinois Fighting Illini
- Missouri Tigers
Well, well, well! How the turn tables!
There are a few notable takeaways at first glance. And several more at second glance.
First, the top three were from the Big Ten or Independent. Second, there were five SEC teams in the top 12, and five Big Ten teams in the top 12. "nO OtHeR CoNFrenCE HaS a REguLAR sEAsON AS GrUELing aS THe SeC's."
Third, much of the controversy around the College Football Playoff selections revolved around Indiana's inclusion over Alabama, Ole Miss, and South Carolina. Except Indiana had the eighth-best strength of record. And was higher, in some cases significantly higher, than any of those three schools.
Not to mention how livid BYU fans must be at the disrespect they've faced, being left out of the playoff despite having a better strength of record than SEC-darling Tennessee. Especially considering that Tennessee was humiliated by the Buckeyes in their matchup.
SEC Missing Key Points With Its Arguments
What the SEC misses with its appeal to analytics is that overall conference strength does not necessarily indicate that an individual team deserves to make the playoff ahead of another. And, of course, analytics, while useful and illustrative, are not the only measure of value.
There are any number of examples illustrating this, but here's just a few.
Strength of record isn't necessarily a measure of the best teams in the country, so much as it is a measure of how difficult, or not difficult, it would be for elite, good, or average teams to have a given record against a particular schedule. Simply, how many games would a generic high-performing team be expected to win against say, Indiana's schedule. If a given schedule is extremely difficult, that might be 9-3. As in, 2024 Ohio State, the best team in the country, could finish 9-3 against such a schedule and have it be considered a top-10 strength of record.
Does that mean 9-3 Ohio State should go to the playoff ahead of say, a team that finishes 12th in strength of record and goes 11-1? If a 9-3 season is 12th in strength of record, and an 11-1 team ranks 11th, which is better? These kinds of questions are difficult to answer, which is why there's a committee to attempt to sort through them. And for the most part, with some exceptions, fans, analysts, and committee members prefer winning more games. Except when it comes to 2023 Alabama vs 2023 Florida State, which has been oh so conveniently forgotten less than two years later.
2024 LSU and USC exemplify this perfectly. LSU ranked 10th in strength of record, despite finishing the season 9-4. They played a tough schedule, and losing four games isn't unexpected because of it. No one was, or should be, advocating for them to make the playoff. USC finished 6-6, yet was 25th overall in one advanced metrics ranking, and 17th in ESPN's FPI. Their offensive and defensive efficiency should have led to more wins. But their strength of record was just 38th, because the Trojans frequently collapsed in the fourth quarter and finished 6-6. In this instance, USC was actually a significantly better quality team than its strength of record implies. See how easy it is for one metric to be misleading, in either direction?
This is a useful tool for evaluating teams, but it's not a conclusive metric. Unless, of course, the SEC wants to use it to generalize in an attempt to convince the media that it's head and shoulders above the rest.
Oh, and for the record, Alabama was 17th in SOR, while South Carolina was 19th. Ole Miss was still out of the playoff picture, though at least closer, at 13th. But all three of the teams that the SEC meltdown started over did not deserve to be included in the playoff, even by the metric they themselves chose. Whoops!
Then there's the endless on-paper disproven hypothetical situations that the SEC and its supporters ignore. For years, fans and teams said that schools in other conferences simply wouldn't be able to compete in the SEC. Then Texas joined and won the regular season conference title in its first year. Even Oklahoma, in a down year, allowed just three points to Alabama in a blowout 24-3 win.
Other teams can't possibly compare. Except Michigan beat Alabama in their bowl game, Illinois beat South Carolina, USC beat Texas A&M, Ohio State obliterated Tennessee and dominated Texas, Notre Dame easily handled Georgia, and Navy beat Oklahoma. And ASU had a CFB playoff win over Texas taken away by the officials.
The SEC wants to have it not just both ways, but every way. They get to play eight conference games instead of nine, then say that their eight are still tougher. They get to schedule bye weeks in November with Mercer and Furman and *insert directional school here*, while other teams are stuck with rivalry or in-conference games. They get to have teams like Kentucky, who has never played a football game west of Austin, Texas, while other schools routinely travel thousands of miles every year. They benefit from geographic consistency, leading to situations like 2024, when USC traveled roughly 6,000 miles further during the regular season than Alabama. Or Florida, which didn't play one non-conference game on the road between 1991-2022. They then lost their first attempt in over 30 years, 23-11 to Utah in Salt Lake City, meaning they have not won a road non-conference game since 1989.
They get to rely on playing each other for strength of schedule, then appeal to analytics for support. While ignoring when those same analytics don't actually support their specific arguments.
They get to substitute crowd size and fan support for actual team quality. Or dismiss 6-6 teams in other conferences as losers who wouldn't win a game in the SEC, while demanding that 6-6 teams in the SEC be treated as equivalent to a playoff-level team in others.
It's ridiculous and it needs to stop. Though, of course, it never will, because the SEC is the most important voice in the college football room. And their meltdown after seeing things go against them, just once, shows they won't stop being the loudest one, too.