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New Year’s Six makes a statement about the SEC, but not the statement you think
By Jordan Cox
Published:
Slow it down, college football fans.
Over a two-day period on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, the SEC embarrassed itself and sent the college football world into a frenzy.
“The SEC sucks.”
“Its run is over.”
“Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Auburn were all flukes.”
We heard some variation of those statements last week as five of the SEC West’s seven teams lost in their bowl games. And in the mother-of-all-irony, the lowly SEC East went undefeated to salvage a winning bowl record for the conference.
But what did the SEC’s absence in the New Year’s Six say about the once-titled “best conference in college football”? What does it mean for the future of the league?
The SEC’s decade-long run is unrivaled in sports. Period. No team, division or conference will ever have another championship-laden run as Mike Slive’s conference did. However, the run of fielding a team in the national championship game is over, and the run of a SEC program winning the title two years removed.
The landscape of the league and the sport is changing, a fact that must be recognized by fans of the Southeastern Conference. Such as there was gloating and pride during a run of seven consecutive national titles, so there must be inner reflection when the league just got its brains beat out during bowl season.
If there is one thing we can say definitely, it’s that the SEC as a whole didn’t collectively decide not to show up. How else could you explain the East going 5-0? Those teams had something for which to play and that translated into wins. The West, however, is more of a story of individual programs being deflated by individual problems that led to the crushing demolition of what many believed in August was the nation’s best division.
Ole Miss
The Rebels produced one the best seasons in school history behind an up-and-coming coach and, statistically, the best quarterback in school history. However, if you try to argue that Ole Miss was the same team after the loss of its two offensive cornerstones — Laquon Treadwell and Laremy Tunsil — you can’t.
Treadwell is such a playmaker that defenses must respect, it opens up other weapons and gives the run game a chance to get going. The Rebels struggled to garner much production from the running back spot in 2014, but after Treadwell went down against Auburn, the run game had no success outside of an aberration of a performance against Mississippi State.
Never had it been more evident than in the Peach Bowl against TCU. Hugh Freeze’s team got cornered into perhaps the worst situation of any bowl team. TCU wanted to showcase its team on national television against a perceived power, and it did. Ole Miss isn’t good enough, especially minus Treadwell and Tunsil, to beat the Horned Frogs.
Yes, the Rebels’ defense got torched. There’s no good explanation for that. Dave Wommack’s unit lost its top scoring defense title behind a devastating game from TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin.
Ole Miss is good, but its not elite. Not yet. And if you’re not an elite team, injuries to your top players will be felt.
Mississippi State
Though in a loss, the Bulldogs fought valiantly in the Orange Bowl. Even with a month to prepare, Georgia Tech’s option offense is tough to stop. Many have called Yellow Jackets quarterback Justin Thomas the best signal-caller Paul Johnson’s had in Atlanta, and that makes the scheme that much tougher to slow.
Dak Prescott had a huge game, but slow starts out of the gates cost Dan Mullen’s team win No. 11 on the season. Georgia Tech outscored Mississippi State 35-0 in the first and third quarters combined. Against a team that controls the ball on the ground, that’s a good way to get beat.
The Bulldogs didn’t run into the problems Ole Miss or Auburn did. Injuries or a horrid defense didn’t cost Mississippi State on a huge stage. Prescott and company ran into a hotter team, a team coming off an upset road win of its in-state rival and a two-point loss to undefeated Florida State in the ACC championship game.
Alabama
The Crimson Tide, like its SEC West counterparts mentioned above, ran into a better team. And let’s face it, this Alabama team isn’t the 2011 edition of Nick Saban’s teams.
A vulnerable defense and a pass-happy offense worked in the SEC — which let’s face it, was down in 2014 as compared to recent years — but against a rolling Ohio State team, didn’t. Many have lauded the 2014 campaign as Saban’s best coaching job and rightly so. The Tide arguably overachieved this season by winning the SEC.
Turnovers and an inability to stop the run, something we thought we’d never say about Kirby Smart’s defense, doomed Alabama. That performance would’ve ended in a loss to any of the other three semifinalists.
The Rest of the Story
Those four games don’t tell the entire story for the SEC, but they are the biggest sellers. Each of those teams spent time in the top-three of the College Football Playoff rankings this season.
Notre Dame piled on the SEC with a shocking win over LSU. The Fighting Irish rode two quarterbacks to the win, and the Bayou Bengals fielded an uninspired defense.
Perhaps the pending loss of defensive coordinator John Chavis served as a distraction. We’ll never know. What we do know is that Les Miles’ team looking completely uninterested in playing in the Music City Bowl.
Auburn’s problems, well, they’re well-documented. An eight-week defensive stretch against FBS opponents worse than any in school history.
Auburn allowed at least 31 points and 400 yards of total offense to each of its final eight Power 5 conference opponents.
(Read that again.)
No matter how good your offense is, if you can’t stop the opposing team, your chances of winning significantly decrease. I know that seems like common sense, but the Tigers were head-scratchingly bad on defense. The only strength of the unit, the run defense, degraded down the stretch culminating in a record-setting outing from Wisconsin tailback Melvin Gordon in the Outback Bowl behind 400 rushing yards as a team.
So what do we takeaway?
Well, several things actually. One being that a number of factors play into winning a bowl game. There’s the month-long layover, momentum — or lack there of — carried over from the regular season, a motivation to play in the chosen bowl game and more. College football fans are the most reactionary of any in sports, especially during bowl season. We’re so quick to judge a league on five games rather than the body of work.
Secondly, it’s that pundits such as ESPN’s Danny Kanell are more correct than fans in the southeast prefer to admit. The SEC’s title of best conference in college football still stands; a decade’s worth of work can’t be torn down in two days. But it’s time SEC fans admit there are other very good conferences nationally. The Pac-12 is hot on the heels of the league and with Jim Harbaugh to Michigan, the Big Ten received a significant shot in the arm last week.
Other leagues are coming and I, for one, am excited to watch a national championship game without an SEC team. Parity is good for the sport, and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen it at this level around the country.
The SEC now must go to work and try to reclaim is stranglehold on the “nation’s best conference” title.
The New Year’s Six made a statement about the SEC, it just depends on what statement you take away.
After living in Birmingham, Ala., Jordan left the ground zero of SEC Nation to head south to Florida to tell the unique stories of the renowned tradition of SEC football. In his free time, his mission is to find the best locales around.
