A&M And Mizzou Fans, You’ve Got To Know Your Limitations

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In the past week I’ve done one radio show and one podcast in Missouri as well as  two radio shows in Texas.  In all four conversations I was asked how long I thought it would take for Mizzou and A&M to become consistently good or “make their mark” in the SEC.

My tip to everyone reading: Just as many, many SEC fans are underestimating the Aggies and Tigers long-term chances for success, Aggie and Tiger fans are underestimating the week-in, week-out toll that comes from playing against teams that produce NFL offensive and defensive linemen by the dozens.  For that matter, even fans of long-time SEC schools forget that the league has a way of eating its own.  Thus the relatively new experience of SEC coaches arriving on hot seats after just two seasons.

Before we go any further, let’s let Clint Eastwood some up the gist of the history lesson you’re about to read:

Thank you, Clint.

Just a couple of weeks ago the media (and quasi-media) gathered at SEC Media Days predicted an LSU-Georgia rematch in this year’s SEC Championship Game.  The odds of that happening — based on past league history — are 3 in 20.  That’s right.  In 20 years of SEC title games there have been just three rematches from the year prior.  That’s a 15% clip.  And two of those rematches came prior to 1995 (the first three SEC Championship Games were clashes between Florida and Alabama in ’92, ’93, and ’94).

So since ’95, there’s been only one rematch in 17 seasons.  That, too, was provided by the Tide and Gators going back-to-back in 2008 and 2009.  (For the record, seven times UA and UF have clashed for the crown and no other pairing comes close to matching that big-game rivalry.)

Add all that up and it would be a real break from history if both LSU and Georgia made it back to Atlanta this December.

That’s the trick to the SEC.  That’s what fans of the new schools and the old schools have to come to grips with — no one stays on top for long.  There’s really no such thing as “consistent” dominance.  Alabama has won two of the last three BCS titles.  The year in between?  They lost three regular-season games with a team that returned nearly everyone from the year before.  Jaws dropped across the Yellowhammer State and the league because everyone had forgotten that pulling a two-fer in the SEC just isn’t done anymore.  Florida won two out of three BCS titles between 2006 and 2008.  In 2007 they finished with four losses overall.  Same story.  You can be good, maybe even great, and still you’re not going to own the SEC.

(More numbers and breakdown after the pagebreak.)

In the 1990s, Steve Spurrier and Phillip Fulmer helped Florida and Tennessee dominate the SEC East just as Alabama and LSU lead the way in the SEC West today.  Georgia was the Arkansas of that time… often good, but just not good enough to jump past the two teams ahead of it.

At the time, Florida and Tennessee reeled off six consecutive SEC titles.  The Gators won from ’93 through ’96 and the Vols in ’97 and ’98.  That run by the Vols was the last time an SEC school recorded back-to-back league championships.

Think about that for a second.  No SEC school — not Florida, not Alabama, not LSU — has won back-to-back league titles in 13 years.

Spurrier and Fulmer set the bar.  Other schools around the turn of the century and since have decided to make coaching moves and spend more money on facilities trying to catch-up.  Enter Lou Holtz and then Spurrier at South Carolina.  Enter Mark Richt at Georgia.  Enter Nick Saban, first at LSU and then at Alabama.  Say hello (and goodbye) to Bobby Petrino at Arkansas.

These hires and that spending have resulted in an age where winning championships consistently just doesn’t occur much anymore.  Again, no repeat champ since Tennessee in ’97-’98 and just one repeat SEC title game matchup — Bama/Florida in ’08 and ’09 — in 17 seasons.

You can even take the parity right down to the division level, too.

Between 1992 and 2001, Florida or Tennessee won every East Division crown.  Since then, Georgia made back-to-back trips to Atlanta in 2002 and 2003 and Florida had those back-to-backers in ’08 and ’09.  That’s it.  Two repeat SEC East representatives in a decade.

On the other side of the conference, Alabama represented the SEC West in the league championship game during its first three years of existence.  But since way back in 1995, only once — once — has a West Division team been to Atlanta two years in a row (Bama in ’08 and ’09).

The East’s SEC Championship Game representatives: Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida, Tennessee, Tennessee, Florida, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Georgia, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Florida, Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The West’s SEC Championship Game representatives: Alabama, Alabama, Alabama, Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, LSU, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, LSU, Alabama, Alabama, Auburn, and LSU.

The lesson in all of this?  Missouri and Texas A&M fans need to aim for consistently competing for division championships.  Do that and the Tigers and Aggies will occasionally reach Atlanta and might just win a title every now and then.  And that should be the goal of the other 12 schools in the league as well.  The days of waltzing through the league to collect trophies every season are gone.  At the overall level and at the division level.

The SEC is just too deep and too strong for any fanbase to expect to win the conference — or even their division — year-in and year-out.  It just doesn’t happen anymore.

Here endeth the lesson.