The Better Football Conference: PAC-10 or SEC?
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by RDS1980
Another college football season approaches and the debate rages on… who has the better conference SEC or PAC 10. I analyzed the numbers in certain categories for over the past 5 years. These categories are; coaching, NFL Drafts, Top 25 offenses and defenses, championships, and Heisman Trophy winners. I’ll show you what I found and my own estimation of who has the toughest conference.
Coaches: These are the men that call the shots and run the show from the sidelines. Every fall they become the face of their respective schools. If you measure a conference by how successful their coaches are then consider the following. The SEC has 4 coaches in their conference that have won the BCS National Title in their career (Phillip Fulmer, Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, and Steve Spurrier). The Pac 10 only has one (Pete Carroll). Now understandably you have to have the money to go after big name coaches and the SEC pours money in their football programs like manna from heaven, the PAC 10 on the other hand doesn’t necessarily have the funds (USC being the exception) to go after the big coaches.
NFL Draft: Maybe you would like to think that you can judge a conference by how many of their players make it to the big show. Presumably the cream of the crop is taken in the first round, so going back to the 2002 NFL draft to the most recent NFL draft how many players from each conference have been taken in the first round? If that being the case consider this, the PAC 10 has had 19 players taken in the first round in the past 5 years, the last #1 pick from a PAC 10 school was Carson Palmer in ’03. The SEC trumps that with a total of 37 players taken from their conference in the past 5 years in the first round of the NFL Draft, with 2 #1 picks (Eli Manning and JaMarcus Russell). Now I didn’t dwell farther than the first round, maybe the PAC 10 had more players overall go the NFL or maybe the SEC held on to their lead after the first round, however the case still remains if the best are chosen first then the numbers don’t lie.
Heisman Trophy Winner: This is the greatest individual award given in college football, and in the past 5 years no conference has turned out more Heiman recipients than the PAC 10. Since 2002 three players from the PAC 10 have won the Heisman. What about the SEC, well not so much as matter a fact not any. The last SEC player to win the Heisman was in 1996( Danny Weurffell, Florida). These numbers don’t lie either, the PAC 10 has more award winners, and especially for the greatest individual college football given, than the SEC… bar none.
The SEC doesn’t play Offense: I have heard this argument before that the SEC has such a great defense because nobody in the conference knows how to play offense. There could be some truth to this rumor. In the past 5 years an SEC team has only had a top 25 offense 4 times. Compare that to the PAC 10 having a team in the top 25 total offense category 5 times. And more teams are in that category for the PAC 10 than the SEC. on average if an SEC team did have just one team with a top 25 offense the PAC 10 had at least 3. What’s that old saying, “Offense gets the glory!”
The PAC 10 doesn’t play Defense: “But Defense wins the game!” the other side of the equation is not so pretty for the PAC 10. In the last 5 years the PAC 10 conference has only had teams represent them in the top 25 Defense category only 4 times. The SEC has had teams in there 5 times. With far more teams from the SEC being in this category then PAC 10, on average the SEC outranked the PAC 10 four to one on this one.
Who has the most hardware: So which conference has the most championships? That’s what it’s all about right? You sweat it out for 12 games, or 11 in some cases, living and dying with every down just so you can play that precious crystal ball. Well if that be the case then guess who has won more championships…. no one. This is a dead draw. The SEC has won two national titles (LSU <2003 BCS>and Florida) while the PAC 10 has won 2 national titles (USC<2003 AP, 2004 BCS >). If that was going to be your deciding factor then I’m sorry but your stuck, like many millions of college football fan wondering the same thing, who has the better conference?
My Pick: Call it bias in its finest, I pick the SEC. I’m a grad of LSU and I was there for their 2003 BCS title game. Besides that look at the all of the facts, if you take USC out of the equation the PAC 10 doesn’t have a leg to stand on. If you take one SEC team out of the equation then another will take its place. In my research I also found that other conferences are more deserving of being matched up in “Who has the better conference?” debate. Schools like Texas, Michigan, Ohio State, and Oklahoma continuously popped up in every category listed above. So the Big 10 and Big 12 could interject their names into the equation easily.
Having said that, do I think USC walks backwards into the national championship game every year? No, I don’t think so. Look at their non-conference schedule, which the BCS does. They play Auburn, Notre Dame, and Nebraska. I believe in most cases they earn their respect but this wasn’t a debate about the better school… just the better conference.
(1)-Draft picks from www.nfl.com
(2)-Winners from www.heisman.com
(3)-Stats from www. ncaa .org/stats/ football
