Let the rest of the country brag about its ivy-covered traditions and its cultural superiority. Down in Dixie, they’re satisfied trotting out the top college football teams anywhere on any given Saturday.
The Southeastern Conference is always strutting around, proclaiming itself the best in the land, as if the issue isn’t even worth discussing.
It’s a glory road of the gridiron that starts in Florida, winds its way up through Georgia and Tennessee, then curves back into Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana, an unrivaled path of pigskin prestige.
Since the powers that run college football created the Bowl Championship Series a decade ago, SEC teams have won the national title four times. No other conference has won more than twice.
Florida could make it five national titles — and three in a row — when the Gators meet the Big 12’s Oklahoma in the BCS championship game Thursday night.
Given its long-standing success, it’s easy to see why the SEC has become the league everyone else loves to hate. These guys don’t mind tooting their own horn, either, which only adds to the hard feelings emanating from the rest of the country.
“They have a golden spoon in their mouth,” said Glenn Rhea, a 33-year-old fan and graduate of Big 12 school Texas Tech. “They always think they’re better than everybody else.”
And why not?
The last conference to take three straight Associated Press titles? That would be the SEC, which did it some three decades ago with Alabama (1978-79) and Georgia (1980).
In this updated version of the Civil War, the Big 12 is just an annoyance (granted, they did have four pretty good teams this year), the Big Ten is a bunch of slow-footed, three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dusters, the Pac-10 is nothing more than USC and the Nine Dwarfs. What about the Atlantic Coast Conference? C’mon, that’s a basketball league. The Big East? Puh-lease.
“When you do it three years in a row,” said Florida right end Tate Casey, “some people are going to start resenting you. I think that’s what we’re seeing.”
But this dynamic runs a bit deeper.
College football is the undisputed king of Southern sports, unencumbered by the loyalties reserved for pro teams (latecomers to the region) and a source of pride to those who still remember the struggles of integration and the civil rights movement.
Sports
SEC makes case for the best
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Armstrong says he's happy investigation over
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South Alabama topples Arkansas State 74-57
Mychal Ammons scored a career-high 25 points to lead South Alabama to a 74-57 win over Arkansas State Thursday night in Sun Belt Conference play.
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Right at home
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Sports Ledger Feb. 10, 2012
Sports Ledger is a daily list of upcoming sporting events scheduled throughout Limestone County.
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Right at home
When East Limestone plays Lee in the Class 5A Area 15 Tournament tonight, the Indians face an uphill task against the No. 2 team in the state. Despite being up against a handful of future college basketball players, East has something Lee does not in Jordan Gandy.
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Univ. of ND will use Fighting Sioux nickname
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Looking forward...
Soccer season cannot get here fast enough for Ramon Jurado. The Athens junior lost his home during the deadly string of tornadoes that scarred Alabama last April. Like others effected by the storms, Jurado remembers every detail of that ill-fated spring day.
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Green leads Alabama past Auburn 68-50
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JaMychal Green scored 19 points, Trevor Releford added 15 and the Crimson Tide raced to a 68-50 win on Tuesday night.
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Mayor calls New York City 'Big Blue Apple' for Giants' win
The team was introduced with thunderous applause from the lucky 250 fans who got tickets to a ceremony at City Hall Plaza, where the Giants were honored with symbolic keys to the city.
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Charge against ex-Alabama CB Kirkpatrick dropped
Kirkpatrick was arrested on Jan. 17 after Palmetto, Fla., police stopped a car driven by another former Alabama player, Chris Rogers, for driving on the wrong side of the road.
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