SEC just carrying the hype
Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops stirred the pot this week when he dared to say that the gap between the SEC and the rest of the college football world isn’t as wide as it’s made out to be.
Never mind that Nick Saban and Alabama won the league’s seventh consecutive national championship last season, or that the league had twice as many players taken in the most recent NFL Draft (63) as any other league, or that it just worked out a deal with ESPN to create its own television network that will bring an even more obscene amount of money into the league’s coffers.
Still, the SEC isn’t all that great. It’s just top-heavy, according to Stoops. Get past the first five or six teams, and it isn’t great at all.
In fact, Stoops argued that the so-called gap between the SECand everyone else is essentially “propaganda” spread by the SEC media.
That revelation may have riled up SEC fans, but Tom Shatel of the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald said there is some merit to Stoops’ assessment.
“I totally get what Stoops was doing earlier this week when he said the SEC was overhyped,” Shatel wrote. “There’s too much SEC overkill. And it all comes from the same place: the SEC media. No group of media in college football takes care of their own like the SEC. These people take every opportunity to trumpet every SEC success and the league’s superiority. It’s a regional thing, it’s a pride thing, and no region takes more pride in its football than the south.
“I respect that. But I get tired of it, too.
“I’ve said for years the bottom half of the SEC is overrated. It’s good, but not best in the country good. And after Alabama and LSU, who’s great? I just watched a good, not great, Nebraska team take South Carolina and Georgia to the mat for three quarters in the last two bowl games. SEC talent and depth prevailed in the fourth, but NU was hardly outclassed. In fact, NU had its way throughout both games. And these were supposedly two of the SEC’s better teams.
“That aside, I don’t know when we started keeping score of the best conference. My guess is, we started when the SEC started its run. Nobody was talking much about the SEC before 2006, certainly not in the 1990s or 1980s or 1970s. Or any other league.
College football hasn’t been a sport defined by conferences.
The eras have been marked by dynasties, the Bud Wilkinson Sooners, the John McKay Trojans,the Switzer and Osborne Big Reds, Miami and Florida State, with Joe Paterno and Bear Bryant winning titles at various times.
And now the Saban Era.
“What’s happening now is more about Saban than it is Mississippi or South Carolina.”A triple threat
Out-of-work quarterback Tim Tebow was named this week as the most influential athlete in a survey published by Forbes magazine.
“It’s easy for ad men to explain,” comedian Argus Hamilton wrote. “Tim Tebow combines the excitement of wildly unpredictable quarterback skills with the popularity of Jesus and unemployment benefits.”Clear choice
Not that we pay attention to these types of things, but Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend is ranked 69th on the Maxim Hot 100 list of sexiest women in the world.
“We think it might be nice to have an invisible girl of our own to love,” the magazine said.
“Why not? She’s got a ton of great qualities, including looking awesome in a bikini.”Quote of the day “A lot of times in the
state tournaments you’ll
see some great players separate themselves, and
that’s kind of what he’s
done. He has come to play.” Jonesboro Coach Mark Dobson on J.D.
Rainwater, who has hit three home runs in the Class 6A baseball state tournament
Sports, Pages 26 on 05/12/2013