O'Gara: Is the SEC really the 3rd-best Power 5 conference in America?
Here’s all you need to know about the SEC’s start to the 2023 season.
The conference’s best win belongs to Mizzou, and it nearly didn’t happen because of a completely inexcusable delay of game penalty that turned a 56-yard field goal try into a historic 61-yard field goal try. Fortunately for Mizzou, and perhaps the SEC as a whole, Harrison Mevis, AKA “the Thiccer Kicker” shrugged off that baffling mistake by drilling the longest kick in conference history.
The SEC’s biggest flex of nonconference play was a walk-off win against Kansas State. Yeah. Telling.
Disagree with that? Sure, Ole Miss went on the road and beat a ranked Tulane team … which played without starting quarterback Michael Pratt.
So to recap, the SEC’s best win of nonconference play was either a walk-off winner against Kansas State or a win against a Group of 5 team that started a backup quarterback. Pick your poison.
What does that mean for the SEC? A few things.
Let’s call it what it is — the SEC had a rough start to 2023. LSU, Alabama, Texas A&M, South Carolina and Florida all suffered double-digit losses in their Power 5 nonconference showdowns. So did Vanderbilt, but hey, nobody was asking the Commodores to do the heavy lifting for the SEC.
Including Arkansas’ home loss to BYU, the SEC has a 5-7 record vs. Power 5 foes in nonconference play. Even worse, 4 of those 5 wins came against Power 5 squads that didn’t make a bowl game last year. Aforementioned Kansas State was the lone Power 5 bowl team that the SEC took down in nonconference play. That’s nothing to write home about. Here’s where that 5-7 mark stacks up compared to the other Power 5 conferences through 3 weeks of the nonconference slate:
- Pac-12 — 7-3
- ACC — 8-8 (note that Notre Dame counts as a P5 matchup for NC State)
- Big 12 — 6-6
- SEC — 5-7
- Big Ten — 5-8
Obviously, it’s the Pac-12’s world and we’re just living in it. Duh. For the Pac-12, it’s never been set up better to put a team in the 4-team Playoff for the first time since 2016. A failure to accomplish that feat in the final year of the conference’s existence would be a tough pill to swallow. The “everyone beat up on each other” argument would have more legitimacy than ever.
(Maybe don’t play a 9-game conference schedule then? Just a thought. Oh, that’s right. There’s no such thing as a future thought with the Pac-12. Carry on!)
But here’s the thing. Outside of the Pac-12, nobody else has really flexed in nonconference play yet. And sure, the Big Ten can boost that résumé if Ohio State can beat Notre Dame in South Bend this weekend and the SEC could pick up a huge win in the regular-season finale if Florida can beat Florida State in The Swamp.
But really, the title of “No. 2 Power 5 conference” is very much up for grabs.
That’s good news for the SEC. If you’re ranking the SEC as the worst of the Power 5 conferences so far, you’re probably also ignoring that it still boasts Georgia, AKA the No. 1 team in the country that is trying to become the first program to 3-peat since 1936 Minnesota.
What seems unlikely is the SEC gets 2 teams into the Playoff for the third time. Go figure that it’s the Big Ten, AKA the league with the worst nonconference record vs. Power 5 foes, who might have the best path to that. After all, it did that last year and this year, it boasts 3 of the top 7 teams in the AP Poll entering Week 4. Meanwhile, Georgia is the SEC’s lone top-10 team with preseason top-15 teams Alabama, LSU and Tennessee having already suffered a September loss.
The most likely result of the SEC’s slow start to 2023 is that this season plays out similarly to 2016. That year, Alabama went into the Playoff undefeated as the defending champs and No. 1 team in the country. Every other SEC team finished that season with at least 4 losses.
That could be the path that the conference is on with Georgia getting into the Playoff unscathed. Perhaps it’ll fall in the SEC Championship to a 1- or 2-loss West champ. It’s worth noting that in 16 of the past 17 years, the winner of the SEC Championship played in a national championship game. The lone exception was 2014 Alabama, which earned the No. 1 seed in the Playoff but lost to Ohio State in the semifinal.
In other words, winning the SEC Championship is still the ultimate résumé booster. But during those 17 years, 2007 LSU was the lone SEC Championship winner that had 2 regular-season losses. While there were instances in which we assume a 2-loss SEC team could’ve made the field with a conference title, we’ve never seen the Playoff selection committee actually have to make that decision.
The 2017 Auburn case was interesting because while the Tigers lost their big nonconference game at defending champ Clemson, they also beat No. 1 Georgia and No. 1 Alabama by double digits to earn a No. 2 ranking heading into the SEC Championship. It’s not likely that this year’s LSU or Alabama squads will get to redeem their double-digit nonconference losses by facing a No. 1 team twice in the regular season.
Alternatively, maybe one of those teams will run the table and become the second team to make the Playoff after losing in nonconference play (2014 Ohio State). Or perhaps Ole Miss will take down Alabama, win the West and play in the SEC Championship for the first time in program history.
There are still plenty of possibilities on the table for the SEC’s Playoff picture, even after an uninspiring nonconference play showing.
That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that the nonconference hay is pretty much in the barn. The “S-E-C! S-E-C!” chants were had, but not by a current SEC team. Future SEC team Texas took care of that.
The anti-SEC crowd got their jabs in on social media, and understandably so. Now is the time to do it.
It certainly isn’t when the SEC is represented in yet another national championship.