Looks like the SEC just owns everything now. Remember when there was an ACC/Big Ten challenge? Had it for years and the ACC usually got the leg up in it. You get the league number of games over 2-3 nights and each team from each conference would play one game vs the other league.
Now it’s ACC vs SEC. In the last two nights, the SEC won 14 of the 16 games. A good many were blowouts on the way to the SEC’s 14-2 record. Only Clemson’s 4 pt. win over Kentucky and Duke’s comeback over Auburn allowed the ACC to win a couple games at all.
So are we just seeing the death of the ACC before our eyes and the domination that was sure to permeate all SEC sports due to the money they have coming in each year? Is there any hope for the ACC at all? I mean, now the sport the ACC was known for is being dominated head to head by the SEC. The SEC long ago took over baseball as well.
Any hope left or do we just need to get OUT NOW! That grant of rights has 12 years - TWELVE YEARS to run yet before anyone could get out without stiff financial penalties. The playoff committee is nothing more than a bouncer at the door of the club, allowing only the B1G and SEC schools in along with the obligatory one spot for an ACC/Big 12/Group of five team and Notre Dame. They rest are gonna be the other Big Two league members. The talk is that if SMU loses Saturday, they’re out as Bama is in no matter what. Had a better list of team’s beaten. So it’s win or go home for the Mustangs. Figures!
Unless I am missing something the argument hinges on quality of teams as judged by conference. That is, the fourth of fifth place team in the SEC plays a much more grueling schedule than the first place team in other conferences. Now that may be true. But it just speaks to the stacked deck. The historical idea was that all the top conferences were equally capable of producing a worthy national champion. Each conference played a “grueling” schedule.
Now the argument boils down to there’s really only two conferences capable of grueling schedules. Which in turn means the playoffs should be 80% SEC and Big Ten and 20% whomever. That’s what they want (and perhaps by extension the media paying for rights). If so, at least say the quiet part out loud.
To me, this is the challenge facing D1 football and basketball (fencing and wrestling aside). Not that it could have been prevented per se, but how did two conferences get allowed to dwarf the rest? Was it really in their interest to do so? Are there unintended consequences? Will “fandom” writ large accept that only two conferences matter? Is it possible that the two conferences continue to grow and de facto morph into a new NCAA?
(My wife got her MA at UNC and she’s a big hoops fan. We watched them just play Alabama and it was clear the talent levels were not even close.)
An interesting look-in at the potential NCAA bracket for college basketball’s tournament in March where Joe Lunardi has 13 - THIRTEEN SEC and 10 Big Ten schools making the 68 team field. That’s 23 of the 68 spots or about 34% of the field for the dance. This coming in a sport where there are many more conferences who play viable basketball throughout the country. We’re not looking at FBS football here where there’s only four leagues who play at the top level (supposedly) in that sport. Here there should be 15-20 leagues who could boast teams in the dance.
But instead we’re seeing the two dominant football leagues putting 1/3rd of the teams in the field. The B1G has always placed close to ten teams in of late but the SEC has made an enormous leap this year with their so far 23 quadrant 1 wins. Where this ends, we’ll see and certainly in this season the SEC hasn’t started conference play yet but it was evident during that ACC/SEC challenge that they have lapped the field for the most part.