THIS TIDE STILL STRONG
TOP-RANKED ALABAMA, WEST CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE CONFERENCE
When Texas A&M and Missouri joined the Southeastern Conference five years ago, the Aggies competing in the SEC West made perfect sense. College Station is easily the westernmost outpost of the SEC, which ventured across the Sabine River for the first time with the addition of A&M.
But Missouri in the SEC East? It made little sense geographically — a glance at a map will let you know why — but it did keep each division at seven teams in the 14-team league. Plenty of observers wondered in 2012 why the SEC didn’t shift Auburn, which is about 35 miles from the Georgia state line, to the East and place Missouri in the West.
It’s still a question in 2017, at least to those who don’t work for the SEC.
“That has not been an agenda item in meetings,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said this summer when asked about possible division realignment. “It is a conversation in most large press conferences in which I appear, and that’s the extent of the conversation.”
Here’s one more reason why a shift of Auburn to the east makes sense: It would help balance the power in the league, considering the Tigers won a national title in 2010 and played for another one in 2013.
The last team from the SEC East to either play for or win a national title was Florida in 2008, and the Gators won national championships in 2008 and 2006.
“SEC teams have won eight of the last 11 national championships,” Sankey said. “Four different teams have claimed those titles.”
Any chance for East?
Three of those programs, however, have come from the SEC West: Alabama (with four in that span), LSU (2007) and Auburn. Since it doesn’t appear splitting Alabama and Auburn, picked first and second in this year’s division race, from their deep west ties will happen any time soon, does any east team stand a chance against the West, in particular Alabama and celebrated coach Nick Saban?
Media members covering the league believe that the best chance to do so in the SEC title game will come from Saban protégé Kirby Smart, Georgia’s secondyear coach. The Bulldogs are picked to win the East, just ahead of two-time defending East champion Florida and third-year coach Jim McElwain.
“We’ve got competition at every position on our team, which is an ingredient that’s hard to measure,” said Smart, who served as Saban’s defensive coordinator for eight seasons. “Competition is a must if we’re going to get to the place we’ve got to get.”
That place is the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, site of the SEC title game Dec. 2. A year ago the media picked Georgia to finish third in the east, and the Bulldogs wound up in a threeway tie for second.
Truth is, any of the SEC’s 13 other programs likely will have trouble matching up with Alabama, which lost out on a fifth national title under Saban in the last seven years on a last-second score by Clemson in the championship game.
“Whether you win or lose, you’re always trying to self-assess, to see what we need to do to get better,” Saban said. “Everybody’s hurt by the fact that they lost, especially the way we lost that particular game on the last play of the game.
“But it wasn’t the last play, it’s what led up to the last play. Our players realize that.”