Let’s start with how the polling system is biased. Most people will claim that preseason polling is useless and has no real bearing on the game. This is certainly true if you look at polls as indicators of how teams will shake out in the season. However, they’re extremely important in terms of maintaining a ranking. See, it’s much harder to climb the polls as the season goes on if you were underrated going in. Conversely, if you start in the top 10 and play in the SEC, you have to REALLY shit the bed to drop out of the rankings. It’s because the conference itself is set up to allow that.
The SEC is almost like a commune in the way that it mutually weakens itself in order to raise up the whole. (That’s right, SEC fans. I just compared your conference to a hippie, communist retreat.) See, the conference realizes that if it only plays a minimal number of games against the teams that make it up and schedules only powderpuff teams as its non-conference opponents, it can preserve the “competitive integrity” of the conference. It’s easy to write off a loss as acceptable when it’s against “yet another powerhouse SEC team.” You’ll have teams end up with 9-3 and 8-4 records that still easily rank in the top 25, which is ridiculous, given that half of their wins are against garbage teams and their three losses are to “premier” teams within their own conference. The only reason that they’re considered premier is because they started that way in the first place. It’s like a snake eating its own tail, except the tail is a dick, and the snake’s mouth is every ESPN mouthpiece paid to laud the SEC’s deified status.
Texas A&M and Missouri have shattered this idea that SEC defenses are unassailable. They’re unassailable, because prior to those two schools’ inclusion in the conference, SEC teams couldn’t pass to save their lives. They acted like ground and pound was their preferred strategy, and not simply a product of the fact that they couldn’t get a real quarterback to save their lives. A&M beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa its first year in the conference, and Missouri won the East its second season in. Their combined record is 35-15 since joining the SEC. Let’s also not forget that neither team was particularly dominant in the Big 12, either. Perhaps the proof is that outside offenses are actually very well suited to beat SEC defenses, provided they have the time to adjust. One game with no previous playing experience versus each other does not proof of superiority make.
