The Southeastern Conference just won its seventh consecutive national championship, just had a record 63 players selected in the NFL Draft (more than twice as many as any other league) and just signed a blockbuster 20-year deal with ESPN to create a network that will pay SEC schools more money than Boone Pickens can shake a windmill at.
But Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said Monday during a Sooner Caravan stop in Tulsa that he's not worried.
Big 12 Conference schools and others around the nation don't have to close some mythical gap.
"Well, it depends on what gap you're talking about," Stoops said. "What are the bottom six doing?"
That's a fair point.
Four of those bottom six did so poorly last year that their coaches got fired. The year before, two SEC coaches were canned. The year before that, it was three.
The only new coach in the Big 12 this season is at Texas Tech, where it seems Tommy Tuberville found himself a better fit in Cincinnati.
As far as that bloated NFL Draft number - one-quarter of the total players drafted last week were from the SEC - it's much the same way: 46 of the 63 came from the top half of the league. The other seven schools produced just 17 draft picks.
Stoops is right about one thing: the bottom of the SEC is no great place to be.
"So they've had the best team in college football," Stoops said. "They haven't had the whole conference. Because, again, half of 'em haven't done much at all. I'm just asking you. You tell me."
The problem for the have-nots is not that Alabama has won three of the last four national championships. It's that, since 2006, Florida has won two and LSU has won one and Auburn has won one. That's four schools winning seven national titles.
It creates an aura of "Who's next?"
And maybe the biggest problem of all is that, for the foreseeable future, is that the top SEC schools will always get the benefit of the doubt in the eyes of pollsters or computers or the College Football Playoff selection committee because of the widely accepted perception that the SEC is America's Best Conference.
Powerhouse LSU only beat Ole Miss by six points? Well, that's because Ole Miss is in the SEC. That makes them great. Sure, they had to win a bowl game just to finish above .500, but that's because they're in the SEC and, well, the rest of the SEC is just a little bit greater this year.
And pay no mind to the inconvenient fact that Ole Miss was plowed at The Grove by some team from Texas - oh, wait, it WAS Texas, the fifth- or sixth-best team in the Big 12 Conference last year. Yeah, best ignore that one.
And conference runner-up Georgia only beat Kentucky by five points? Well, that's because Kentucky is in the SEC, and, by gosh if you don't already know this one, that makes them pretty great, too. They didn't have a winning record, either - OK, they went 2-10, which included 0-8 against the SEC - but hey, it's the SEC.
And please don't look over there where it says Kentucky was routed by cross-state rival Louisville. Or the one where it says the Wildcats lost in overtime to I-AA Western Kentucky.
Surely, Stoops' point is clear now.
"It depends on who you want to listen to," Stoops said. "Listen, they've had the best team in college football, meaning they've won the national championship. That doesn't mean everything else is always the best."
Really, there is no more debate that the SEC is college football's King Kong. It is. But while the natives may blindly worship their giant ape, not every school is a 40-foot gorilla with its own island.
The SEC has had some amazing good fortune during its seven-year conquest.
In 2006, Florida jumped Michigan for the No. 2 spot in the BCS title game after voters decided against an Ohio State-Michigan rematch.
In 2007, two-loss LSU jumped five spots after No. 2 West Virginia was upset by rival Pittsburgh and No. 1 Missouri was trounced by Oklahoma.
In 2008, Tim Tebow's "Braveheart" speech captured voters' imagination after an inexplicable midseason loss to Ole Miss.
In 2010, well, Auburn had Cam Newton.
The gap, Stoops believes, is not as wide as everyone thinks.
"So you're listening to a lot of propaganda that gets fed out to you," he said. "You're more than smart enough to figure it out. Again, you can look at the top two, three, four, five, six teams, and you can look at the bottom six, seven, eight, whatever they are. How well are they all doing?
"What'd we (the Big 12) have, eight of 10 teams in bowl games this year? Again, you figure it all out."
Original Print Headline: Stoops: SEC's myth trumps its reality
