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SEC West Proves to Be Fool’s Gold in College Football Playoffs, Bowl Games

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Ole Miss vs. TCU

Jason Getz – USA Today

For years, the SEC has boasted about the caliber of football it produces, as well as the quality of players it sends to the NFL each year. SEC fans have longed championed their conference’s tough-natured and old-school football style of play compared to the new-age and uptempo style the rest of college football has gravitated toward. Every time an SEC school faces another conference foe, and if the outcome is victorious, the predictable “S-E-C, S-E-C, S-E-C!” chant reverberates throughout the entire stadium as to once and for all let it be known that their conference is better than yours. That may have been true in years past, but not this year.

The SEC, particularly the West division, was merely a charade of a dominant conference, and this year’s playoffs and bowl games have proven this notion with five of the top teams all going down in defeat. What’s most intriguing by this is that Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State and Ole Miss were all ranked in the top five, with two of them (Alabama and Mississippi State) ranked No. 1 at some point. Even LSU was ranked in the top 10.

The most emphatic loss came when once No. 2 ranked Ole Miss received a drubbing of all ages by the hands of a ticked off TCU team to the tune of 42-3. Mississippi State, who fooled the entire college football world into believing they were worthy of the top spot, got their tails handed to them by Georgia Tech 49-34.

As the state of Mississippi failed to do their part, and failed miserably, the state of Alabama was not much better. Auburn, who led the Wisconsin Badgers 31-28 late in the fourth quarter, let one slip away as they were defeated in overtime after a missed field goal to tie ultimately gave the Badgers the victory 34-31.

As for Alabama, one could argue this team overachieved in large part due to having an inexperienced quarterback in Blake Sims, who nobody expected to win the job in the first place. However, the team looked shaky in many areas throughout the entire season, especially on defense, in which they gave up astronomical amounts of yardage unaccustomed to a Nick Saban defense.

While the SEC was stuck beating its chest, the entire nation took notice and went to work to ensure it caught up – and not only that, but knocked the SEC off the proverbial pedestal.

This year, mission accomplished.

Brandon Williams is an Atlanta Braves writer for www.RantSports.com. You can follow him on Twitter, @BfreshAlum4UA, “Like” him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.

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