NCAA football, 2013-14

[Rasputin]

Wow. On way to lax to return. Amazing game. Amazing stadium. Aar to follow

[Berkut]

I am now a FSU fan.

[Valmy]

Congrats to FSU and Rasputin.  Finally a really good BCS title game.  Seems like they have all been pretty terrible with perhaps the exception of Oregon-Auburn ever since the VinceBowl.

[MadBurgerMaker]

[alfred russel]

BCS era is now over after 16 years.

The records by conference (based on where current teams play):

SEC: 9-2
ACC: 3-4
BIG 12: 2-4
Pac 12: 1-2 (0-2 officially)
BIG 10: 1-3
Ind: 0-1

Excluding the national title by Ohio State, the most northern team to win the BCS championship game was Tennessee.

[Valmy]

Hopefully the Big 12 will fare a bit better in the playoff era.

[Berkut]

God, I hate the SEC.

I am perfectly willing to admit this is based on nothing more than hating that they've won the meta game of college football.

[Valmy]

God, I hate the SEC.

I am perfectly willing to admit this is based on nothing more than hating that they've won the meta game of college football.

If you are a fan of another school in another conference and DON'T hate the SEC then there is something wrong with you.

[Berkut]

Hopefully the Big 12 will fare a bit better in the playoff era.

I think playoffs will give other conferences a better chance, but fundamentally the SEC has a huge geographic recruiting advantage, coupled with excellent leadership/management dedicated to winning at any and all costs. They understand that NCAA "rules" are nothing more than variables of the game, and not anything to respect in and of themselves. And they are very, very good at it. They've made their system work at generating just insane amounts of money they can then feed back into their carefully managed system to continue to dominate the overall system.

That is going to be very hard to overcome for anyone on a consistent basis.

[alfred russel]

Hopefully the Big 12 will fare a bit better in the playoff era.

I think playoffs will give other conferences a better chance, but fundamentally the SEC has a huge geographic recruiting advantage, coupled with excellent leadership/management dedicated to winning at any and all costs. They understand that NCAA "rules" are nothing more than variables of the game, and not anything to respect in and of themselves. And they are very, very good at it. They've made their system work at generating just insane amounts of money they can then feed back into their carefully managed system to continue to dominate the overall system.

That is going to be very hard to overcome for anyone on a consistent basis.

The talent in the country is concentrated in the south / Texas, and southern california. I think schools like Miami, FSU, Texas, USC, and UCLA are positioned as well as anyone in the SEC. What really helps the SEC is that the money and focus on winning gives schools like Auburn (the second team in a smallish state) a shot to compete nationally.

[Rasputin]

What helps the sec is the passion of their fan base is so high that their mid tier schools still pack a stadium get on tv and are able to use both as a recruiting advantage. The winning causes their boosters to donate more money to the programs which in turn builds better facilities which in turn attracts recruits. It creates a cycle of winning that's tough to compete against.

[Admiral Yi]

My hunch is boosters who are comfortable with moral ambiguity is another SEC advantage.

[Valmy]

What helps the sec is the passion of their fan base is so high that their mid tier schools still pack a stadium get on tv and are able to use both as a recruiting advantage. The winning causes their boosters to donate more money to the programs which in turn builds better facilities which in turn attracts recruits. It creates a cycle of winning that's tough to compete against.

Eh the Mid Tier Big 10 schools pack their stadiums and it does not give them much of a recruiting advantage.  It gives them lots of money though so at least their terrible teams get to enjoy top notch facilities.

The recruiting advantage is they are sitting in a sports and football mad part of the country the produces absurd amounts of top players per capita.  No amount of passion is going to give Minnesota great recruits.

[Berkut]

What helps the sec is the passion of their fan base is so high that their mid tier schools still pack a stadium get on tv and are able to use both as a recruiting advantage. The winning causes their boosters to donate more money to the programs which in turn builds better facilities which in turn attracts recruits. It creates a cycle of winning that's tough to compete against.

That doesn't explain their success at all. That explains why they are one of a few top tier conferences.

They win out over conferences like the Big-10 because they couple all that (what you said above, but what is not fundamentally a unique attribute of the SEC) with a conference level coordination of playing the meta-college football game.

They understand how the system works at the conference level to make sure they get multiple BCS bids, so that the teams that are not going to ever make a BCS bowl still get paid, and hence are happy providing the W's to the designated power teams.

They aren't much concerned with NCAA rules, except insofar as properly balancing risk/reward so to make sure that there isn't too much damage if and when they are caught...and they don't get caught much. But they certainly understand that there is and should be zero consideration actually given to those rules and the intent behind them.

They structure their schedules around making sure they get their top teams the magic number of wins to ensure they always get more than a reasonable share of bowl games.

And they've been doing all this for long enough, and successfully enough, that they've leveraged that advantage to a position that is not challengeable, even by other conferences with rabid fan bases as well. And of course, the loyalty of the fan base is driven and reinforced by that very same success, so it is a very well handled positive feedback loop.

Of course, SEC fans will want to claim that their success is really just because they are better at the things that we all recognize as being "proper" drivers of success - fan motivation, great coaching, etc., etc. But those things cannot possibly explain the level of success of the SEC, unless you assume that the SEC has a commensurately higher level of those things that apparently everyone else in the country lacks. If that were actually the case, that the only real fans of college football are in the SEC, then college football in general would not be the nationally popular sport that it is - it would just be a southern thing.

No, the success of the SEC over the last decade or so has been driven by outstanding management and understanding of how to manipulate the system of NCAA football. And it has almost nothing to do with extra super rabid fans.

[Berkut]

My hunch is boosters who are comfortable with moral ambiguity is another SEC advantage.

I don't think there is anything even remotely morally ambiguous at all about their views on the subject. Quite the opposite in fact - it would be morally unjustifiable NOT to take every possible advantage in order to win.