Dabo disses SEC depth

EnterBama

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Here's the question to ask: is he wrong about the depth of the SEC?

"Listen, the SEC is a great conference, but I don't think they've been as deep the last few years. I think they've had two or three really good teams and then it's kind of been hit or miss from there."


I don't think he's wrong by any stretch.

From 2006-2015 (an entire decade), the SEC had a bowl record of 66-32 and won eight national championships (and played in a 9th PLUS had an all-SEC final).

2016 - 6-7
2017 - 5-6 (okay, UGA was one, but it's still a losing record)
2018 - 6-6

Keep in mind that that 17-19 bowl record includes a win by 5-7 MSU in 2016.

In 2016, no SEC besides Alabama had FEWER than 4 losses, and every team except UA and Florida had at least 3 conference losses.

In 2017, the SEC was Alabama and UGA and a bunch of four-loss or more teams.

The league was "somewhat" better in 2018 as five teams had 3 or fewer losses, but the reality is that the league isn't the 2006-2013 monster anymore.

The Big 12 has an all-time losing record against the SEC, but they're 9-7 in the last 3 years.
In the last 3 years, the SEC is 7-5 against the Big Ten. In the previous decade, the SEC was 25-16 (and 24-13 from 2007-15).

The ACC was 10-4 against the SEC in 2016 and 9-13 the past two years to total 19-17 in favor of the ACC.

But in that decade of dominance, the SEC thumped the ACC to the tune of 56-35.

We've gone from a winning pct of .615 to one of below .500 the last three years...despite the ACC being mostly a clown show last year.


The EVIDENCE supports Dabo's contention that the SEC is NOT what it was five years ago.

They've had "two or three really good teams"

I'd say in 2016, there was ONE DOMINANT team and a bunch of mediocrity.
In 2017, you had Alabama and UGA - and Auburn put together a good half of a season between losing to LSU and then losing to UGA.
In 2018, you had Alabama and UGA as really dominant teams.....LSU was hit or miss.....as were UF and Kentucky.


Now.....none of this vindicates the ACC in any way, but his comments on the SEC are dead-on accurate.
Well, we can look at bowl game wins/losses all we like but the fact is the SEC puts more teams in bowl games and usually play a higher ranked team when they do.

The big question, and you can pick any time frame. Go back 5, go back 10 and ask yourself what would Clemson's record be if they played Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, LSU, TA&M, Florida or even Miss State year end and year out would they ever have made it to a championship game and I think the answer to that is an emphatic NO. Even teams not in my list like Missouri, Ole Miss and even Arkansas have had teams more than capable of beating Clemson during those time frames.

The ACC had two teams with 10 or more wins and their only 9-4 team lost to Texas A&M by 39. Meanwhile the SEC had 5 10 or more win teams, 1 9-4, and 3 8 win teams. Bear in mind that most of those losses and thus not wins were against other SEC opponents and I doubt many teams, including Clemson, would want to play those 9 teams on a regular basis.
 

81usaf92

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I don't know about that. I mean, yea, we have recruited so well over the past 10 years that we are definitely the 500 pound gorilla in the conference much like USC did back in those days. But come on, LSU, TAMU, Georgia and Auburn could all legitimately beat us on a given Saturday. Florida is trending up as is Mizzou. There are some who have fallen way off like the Hogs and Black Bears but, for the most part, the conference is MUCH more of a gauntlet than every other conference except maybe the BIG.
LSU- hasn’t beaten us since 2011 and has been shutout 3 times in that time period

UGA- hasn’t beaten us since 2007, and have 2 blowouts in that time period

TAMU- hasn’t beaten us since 2012 and every game since has been a butt whooping

Auburn- fine, everytime Gus needs to get off the hot seat he winds up with that crazy season. But it’s not a normal occurrence since Saban has taken over that the game is close.

The SEC season since 2012 hasn’t been about Alabama worrying about losing games in conference. Sure every 3 years they slip up and Auburn or UGA wins one. We have won 12, 14,15,16,18. In that time period we have lost 5 conference games. We have lost 4 OOC games in that time period. Since Alabama vanquished LSU in 2011 the SEC hasn’t had a true challenger year in year out to Alabama. Clemson has been far more of a challenger than ANYONE in the SEC.

But Dabo’s Point was more to say Alabama only had 1 competitive game all year, but everyone wants to act like it was such a challenge to get into the playoffs. Our season was “beat UGA and you are in”, but a lot of people try to act like the SECW + Tennessee was such an obstacle to overcome when Alabama was blasting all of those teams by 30,40, and 50 points. He wasn’t saying ACC=SEC. He was more saying “stop making excuses for getting your butt kicked by a more focused and better coached team”. Alabama didn’t lose to Clemson because of the schedule, they lost because we had bad position coaches and a highly unfocused team playing the best team they played all year.
 
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crimsonaudio

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But Dabo’s Point was more to say Alabama only had 1 competitive game all year, but everyone wants to act like it was such a challenge to get into the playoffs.
I think you're missing a vital point - it's not how badly we whip inferior teams, it's that even in victory, our guys take a bigger beating because they're playing premium talent week in and out. While Clemson is play it's AAC-like schedule (it's ironic the conference abbreviations are so close), Bama is blowing out, but getting beat on by seriously talented teams week in and out. Just look at the NFL draft numbers above - and if you remove the two SEC teams Clemson played last year, they hardly played anyone who will be playing on Sundays this fall.

There's ZERO question the SEC has loads of better players than the ACC, and that's the point. Point margin isn't the issue, the physical toll is...

Which is why Dabo is a flipping idiot.
 

CoolBreeze

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LSU- hasn’t beaten us since 2011 and has been shutout 3 times in that time period

UGA- hasn’t beaten us since 2007, and have 2 blowouts in that time period

TAMU- hasn’t beaten us since 2012 and every game since has been a butt whooping

Auburn- fine, everytime Gus needs to get off the hot seat he winds up with that crazy season. But it’s not a normal occurrence since Saban has taken over that the game is close.

The SEC season since 2012 hasn’t been about Alabama worrying about losing games in conference. Sure every 3 years they slip up and Auburn or UGA wins one. We have won 12, 14,15,16,18. In that time period we have lost 5 conference games. We have lost 4 OOC games in that time period. Since Alabama vanquished LSU in 2011 the SEC hasn’t had a true challenger year in year out to Alabama. Clemson has been far more of a challenger than ANYONE in the SEC.

But Dabo’s Point was more to say Alabama only had 1 competitive game all year, but everyone wants to act like it was such a challenge to get into the playoffs. Our season was “beat UGA and you are in”, but a lot of people try to act like the SECW + Tennessee was such an obstacle to overcome when Alabama was blasting all of those teams by 30,40, and 50 points. He wasn’t saying ACC=SEC. He was more saying “stop making excuses for getting your butt kicked by a more focused and better coached team”. Alabama didn’t lose to Clemson because of the schedule, they lost because we had bad position coaches and a highly unfocused team playing the best team they played all year.
Your points are all well taken. But, as a Tide fan, I can tell you that I was on the edge of my seat for every one of those games. We peeked at LSU last year and beat a pretty good team. Miss St. the next week had us on the ropes late into that game. I thought Georgia had us beat. No one here is making excuses about getting it handed to us last year in the National Championship Game either. We lost to the better team that day. That was their '92 Bama-Miami moment. But Dabo does run off a the mouth at times and I am not a Dabo hater. In fact I am glad he makes these bone headed arguments because it provides the opportunity for fans like you and I to discuss it. But it is sheer nonsense and laughable what he is suggesting. That is just my opinion but one I believe in.
 

MOAN

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Clemson played the national champioship game with a chip on their shoulders from the beat down Bama put on them in the semi the year before and played their best game of the season that night! Bama was the best team in the nation for almost the entire year that I seen play period.

Would Clemson had fared the same against Bama's schedule last season? I don't think so. They should have lost at A&M! Georgia and Oklahoma both were better teams than anyone Clemson played before the championship game and on any given day could have beaten Clemson. Just so happens the one day Clemson plays Bama, Clemson was the better team.

No one believes Clemson's path back to the playoff is as hard as Bama's, no one!! Dabo has put together a great team and program at Clemson and will be the ACC's bell cow like Florida State once was for years to come. They are going to win their share but Bama will too and probably Georgia.

At least my favorite team is at the top of the mountain looking down on the rest of the country with Clemson and probably Georgia! The four team playoff at least gives another team or two a chance to break through and join the top but the odds are long....at least until the next expansion!! I am ready for some college football!!! Losing a championship game and the bad taste that leaves in your mouth for months will finally be exorcised with a big win against Duke a fellow Clemson ACC team.

Have any of you looked at Clemson's schedule? ;)
 

81usaf92

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I think you're missing a vital point - it's not how badly we whip inferior teams, it's that even in victory, our guys take a bigger beating because they're playing premium talent week in and out. While Clemson is play it's AAC-like schedule (it's ironic the conference abbreviations are so close), Bama is blowing out, but getting beat on by seriously talented teams week in and out. Just look at the NFL draft numbers above - and if you remove the two SEC teams Clemson played last year, they hardly played anyone who will be playing on Sundays this fall.

There's ZERO question the SEC has loads of better players than the ACC, and that's the point. Point margin isn't the issue, the physical toll is...

Which is why Dabo is a flipping idiot.
This isn’t an ACC vs SEC argument that he is making, this is a “Alabama fans can’t accept that Clemson kicked their butt” argument. Alabama had a whole month to rest up from the tolls of the regular season. We lost the game because of a lack of focus and poor coaching not because we had a murderous road compared to Clemson. If he was to say the SEC was equal or less than the ACC then you have a point, but he didn’t. He was saying that if Alabama was really that good then they wouldn’t have gotten trounced by Clemson.
 

CoolBreeze

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81usaf92

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Wrong, absolutely incorrect.
I don’t remember anyone from Florida saying they were too tired to play Nebraska in 95, and the fact of schedules was the reason for the spanking in Arizona. Nor do I see any Alabama fan letting LSU fans use the “ we had the hardest schedule in the nation and played an extra game” argument for 2011.

At some point you have to let Dabo have his day and accept that 2019 Alabama wasn’t a national championship team. And at some point you have to accept the schedule wasn’t one of the main reasons why that Alabama team got skunked.
 
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RTR91

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TIFWIW, but average ranking of the other nine PAC10 teams in 2004 was 44.9 while the average ranking of the other 13 SEC teams in 2018 was 34.1.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

BamaInBham

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This isn’t an ACC vs SEC argument that he is making, this is a “Alabama fans can’t accept that Clemson kicked their butt” argument. Alabama had a whole month to rest up from the tolls of the regular season. We lost the game because of a lack of focus and poor coaching not because we had a murderous road compared to Clemson. If he was to say the SEC was equal or less than the ACC then you have a point, but he didn’t. He was saying that if Alabama was really that good then they wouldn’t have gotten trounced by Clemson.
You are completely missing the point by saying that Dabo was referring to the Bama fans or any other fans for that matter. He was referring to the media who has occasionally made mention of this. In fact, Bama fans have rarely initiated this point. Mike Griffith and others have.

Also, he was not dissing Bama by implying that they were not that good. In fact, he was praising how good Bama was by beating the rest of the SEC by such wide margins. He was saying how could they be "tired" if they were blowing everyone out.

My only disagreement with him is that last year the SEC is close to what they were in the past years, it was just that Alabama was so superior offensively that they crushed every other SEC team except UGA. Brent Venables has said that what they/Clemson did was phenomenal because Bama was the best offensive team that he had ever seen.

(The media itself, as usual, has been a primary culprit by insinuating that the Alabama program and/or fans have offered this as an excuse when they were the culpable ones. I've seen totally fraudulent headlines.)

Btw, just for completeness of thought: Clemson was the better team that night, Bama was out coached and out played. It was easily the most embarrassing performance by a Nick Saban team at Alabama. Worse than Utah and USCe, worse than any game in 2007. The team was punched in the mouth and essentially wilted, then quit. It was shocking and sickening. We agree on those more important things. Just hope the program can recover from a heretofore unseen performance.
 
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EnterBama

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LSU- hasn’t beaten us since 2011 and has been shutout 3 times in that time period

UGA- hasn’t beaten us since 2007, and have 2 blowouts in that time period

TAMU- hasn’t beaten us since 2012 and every game since has been a butt whooping
So what. None of that makes those teams not good teams or close to elite teams. We've had long runs against good teams back in the old days as well. We had 10 year runs on Tennessee, Auburn and just about everybody else back in the 70's. They still had good teams during those years.
 

crimsonaudio

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This isn’t an ACC vs SEC argument that he is making, this is a “Alabama fans can’t accept that Clemson kicked their butt” argument. Alabama had a whole month to rest up from the tolls of the regular season. We lost the game because of a lack of focus and poor coaching not because we had a murderous road compared to Clemson. If he was to say the SEC was equal or less than the ACC then you have a point, but he didn’t. He was saying that if Alabama was really that good then they wouldn’t have gotten trounced by Clemson.
I'll repost his quote:

"Listen, the SEC is a great conference, but I don't think they've been as deep the last few years. I think they've had two or three really good teams and then it's kind of been hit or miss from there. It's an awesome league, for sure, and I know people say that Alabama was tired because they went through the grind and had to play all these teams," Swinney told ESPN, discussing a narrative he has heard mostly in media circles. "Well, they won by an average of 33.1 points per game [going into the playoff], so they ought to be well-rested."
It's obvious he's dismissing the strength of Bama's schedule vs Clemson's, which is an absolute joke.

Kinda like his logic.
 

The Ols

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I’ll ask the question again...Which schedule would you rather play?
This isn’t an ACC vs SEC argument that he is making, this is a “Alabama fans can’t accept that Clemson kicked their butt” argument. Alabama had a whole month to rest up from the tolls of the regular season. We lost the game because of a lack of focus and poor coaching not because we had a murderous road compared to Clemson. If he was to say the SEC was equal or less than the ACC then you have a point, but he didn’t. He was saying that if Alabama was really that good then they wouldn’t have gotten trounced by Clemson.
 

bamacpa

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I do think the SEC was down last year, but still light years ahead of the ACC. But when the lights came on, Clemson whupped us.
 

81usaf92

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He asked which schedule would you RATHER have, not which is easier. I don’t think many here would want to trade LSU, Auburn, and aTm for Syracuse, BC, and UNC. Alabama’s schedule has the perfect balance of excitement and the difficulty to make a title run.

So yeah I would take Alabama’s schedule over Clemson’s.
 

crimsonaudio

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If I knew playing an easier schedule would still guarantee a chance to play for the NC, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

It's all about winning the NC for me.
 

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