So I turn on ESPN to see a discussion of the National Title Championship. There aren’t a lot options here for pre-game analysis. You have FOX, but I won’t watch any network analysis that employs Clay Travis… period. That doesn’t mean ESPN is a shining star with their Title Talk.
The first thing I see “Is Clemson an SEC Caliber Team?”
This was seriously being debated.
I could even accept the question “Can Clemson compete with Alabama?” Alabama is a great team, and the SEC had a very good bowl season. That doesn’t erase the regular season or the past couple of years where the SEC had slipped. Arkansas destroyed Kansas State in their bowl game, but they also lost to Toledo and Texas Tech. That same Kansas State team lost 55-0 to Oklahoma.
Ole Miss looked very impressive against Oklahoma State, but they lost to Memphis during the regular season. Florida won the SEC East, but was pummeled by Florida State and Michigan by worse scores than in the SEC Title game against Alabama. The ACC went 3-1 against the SEC during rivalry week, and is 7-1 the last two years, including 2-0 against top 15 SEC teams during those rivalry games.
In all games against each other the last two years the ACC is 9-8 against the SEC, so it seems the conferences head to head are about even.
I give the SEC credit – nice bowl season. You earned some kudos, but asking is Clemson is SEC caliber is just silly. The SEC has a great team in Alabama, and some pretty good ones that won their bowl games.
Thankfully @dannykanell was the voice reason, saying were Florida State and Ohio State SEC Caliber Teams and saying the question made no sense, which obviously it doesn’t.
Championship teams are built with good line play, good skill position players, and good coaching. That’s not SEC caliber, that’s common sense.
Teams win championships, not conferences. You’re not conference caliber teams, you are championship caliber teams.
I’ll be the first to admit, I talk about conference relative strength here on this blog. It can be relevant when discussing ranking teams and quality wins, but not at the moment.
Come on ESPN between this debate and calling the Championship a Glorified SEC Title game, leave the conference politicking alone this week because it is Clemson vs Alabama. Last I looked those are teams not conferences.
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