When I see a well written or interesting article, I have no problem promoting it on this site and giving my thoughts on it.
@DanWolken of USAToday wrote a really solid piece titled “The Big Ten replaces the SEC as college football’s most overrated conference”.
Wolken might have a point here. While many of us became frustrated with non-stop SEC coverage nationally, they did after all win 7 straight national titles from 2006-2012, and in general dominated rivalries and OOC opponents. It wasn’t until Florida State beat Auburn in the 2013 national title game that someone finally knocked the SEC off their perch. They didn’t win every game they played OOC, but they won alot of them.
We had to grudgingly respect the SEC, even if at the same time we called them overrated. As Wolken said…
It used to be this part of the calendar was dominated by overwrought SEC hype, but at least it was somewhat deserved based on the year-over-year dominance it had established in the BCS era. Until the last couple of years, giving the SEC the benefit of the doubt was usually a good bet.
Now though we see the Big 10 with 4 top 10 team in the 2017 pre-season poll. This for conference that has been outscored 69-0 the last two years in the college football playoffs. That looks like a mis-print.
"Four teams from the conference that hasn’t scored a point in two consecutive appearances in the College Football Playoff."
— AllSportsDACC (@AllSportsDACC) August 4, 2017
In years past if the ACC would have gone 3-7 during bowl season like the Big 10, it would have been ripped to pieces. Again the Big 10 gets 4 top 10 teams… More from Wolken’s piece
But what has the Big Ten done to deserve four spots in the preseason top-10 besides giving Ohio State a free pass for underachieving the last two years, riding the Jim Harbaugh hype train and going overboard on a Penn State team that suddenly will have to deal with big expectations for the first time in a decade?
Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State are 3 of the 4 Big 10 top 10 teams. They went 0-3 against teams from the ACC last year. You may think pre-season polls don’t matter, but they do. Insulated by artificially high early rankings, those will count as quality wins later in the year. The college football rankings aren’t exact copies of the AP or Coaches polls, but don’t tell us they won’t influence those rankings. Now the rest of the country has to deal with 40% of the top 10 being Big Ten teams and the fall out from it.
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