Final realignment thoughts from The Hammer
We weren’t going to beat this dead horse, but Sooners and Horns fans just can’t stop bashing their new conference online, thinking they’ll run through the SEC like sh*t through a tin horn. We’ve got news for them.
By: The Hammer
These two new SEC members seem to think the competition in the Big 12 is similar to the SEC. They’re in for a rude awakening, and we brought the numbers. (Photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
With the season literally hours away at this point, we are going to be primarily focused on the teams, games and storylines ahead of us in 2021. After these final thoughts on realignment that is. As we know, Texas and Oklahoma are heading to the SEC. Since the news became official, the other conferences and what’s left of the Big 12 have been relatively quiet. No more schools are changing conferences yet, just an “alliance” between the PAC 12, Big 10 and ACC. Matt Hayes of Saturday Down South summed up most SEC fans' thoughts in his article on it, so I won’t go into that very much. When I hear alliance, all I can think of is Dwight Schrute trying to form alliances in The Office, and this alliance seems like a joke to me. They claim it’s real, but no one in SEC Country gives a damn.
Aside from his piece on the alliance, Matt Hayes did have an interesting nugget on a recent appearance on Paul Finebaum when he stated that SEC sources are telling him the “expectation” is that Texas and Oklahoma will be in the SEC next fall. I had speculated this from the outset because neither school wants to be there anymore, and that’s what happened with Texas A&M and Missouri. You can’t get divorced and then still live in the same house for a few more years. It’s too weird. But this is the first time I had heard anyone from the inside saying that. It’s easy for folks like us to speculate, but if people in the know within SEC circles are saying they expect it done by next football season, that carries weight.
Assuming both programs do end up in the SEC next year - how will they do? Jake Crain of the Jboy Show made his thoughts known a few weeks back in this viral video, and he is dead on. I don’t see either team winning an SEC title in their first few seasons. The grind of an SEC schedule is truly different from the Big 12. Oklahoma has breezed through an easy conference schedule (with some minor hiccups ahem Kansas State, Iowa State, etc) for years, only to lose in the playoff, and usually lose badly. I realize losing in the playoff to one of the best four teams in the country is not totally indicative of a program that is far away from greatness. If you are matching up with an SEC team in the CFP, they already ran through the SEC gauntlet and likely only lost once if at all. So the Sooners have been playing the cream of the crop and it’s a small sample size, but I’m about to really break down why it will be different week in and week out in the SEC compared to the cakewalk of the Big 12.
Notice I didn’t bring up Texas in that last part for a reason. They aren’t close to competing for SEC titles right now. They are an average team in the Big 12 and that won’t translate well to the SEC initially. Maybe Sark is the right guy, and if you are a Texas fan you better pray to God he is, but there is WAY more work to be done in Austin than in Norman. If Sark doesn’t cut it for some reason, Texas could be in for a long run of mediocrity. Maybe Urban Meyer’s health will be an issue again in Jacksonville and he’ll be available again in a few years. That went well for the Longhorns this past year, right? Oklahoma at least has an argument to say they will come in and compete. And I think they will compete at a high level, just not win an SEC title.
I’ve heard a bunch of Oklahoma and Texas fans over the last few weeks saying they don't buy into the SEC hype. They don’t think the SEC schedule is really that difficult. You’ll hear them say things like “it’s just Alabama, Georgia and everyone else is average,” or “they all play an FCS team in November,” or “Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Kentucky, South Carolina, are all weak teams that we’ll beat easily,” or “Mizzou won the East twice in their first three years,” and so on. I could go on and on about the dumb things I’ve heard them saying but you get the point. Those fanbases still aren’t convinced that the SEC is that much better of a league and that much harder to compete in. They are naive. And a little cocky (but who isn’t about their team, to be fair). Maybe this will help convince them.
I took a look at every team in the SEC and Big 12’s recruiting rankings over the last 5 years via 247Sports. I then dug up how many draft picks each league was producing on a per-team basis since the SEC has 14 and the Big 12 only has 10. As an SEC guy, I knew the conference was superior to the Big 12 but the numbers are even more staggering than I thought.
Before we get to the NFL draft numbers, the difference in talent between the two conferences is massive according to recruiting results. Bud Elliot of 247Sports stated on a recent episode of the “Cover 3” Podcast that “without Texas and Oklahoma, the Big 12 recruits at a level that is closer to the best Group of 5 conference than the worst Power 5 conference, the PAC 12.” So without those two, the rest of the Big 12 is basically a glorified Group of 5 conference, albeit they would be the best Group of 5 league if you want to hang your hat on that. I mean, the third most talented team based on recruiting rankings averages the 32nd best class in the country over the last 5 years. The SEC has 12 TEAMS that have recruited better over that same time frame, including the likes of Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, and even Kentucky! Since 2012, Texas is 2-7 against TCU and y’all want to join a conference where 12 teams have more talent than the Horned Frogs? Are you sure?
Longhorns and Sooners consider teams like Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and South Carolina to be relatively easy wins. Yet, both Texas and Oklahoma lose to teams with far less talent every year, especially Texas. Couple this with the fact that you will be playing these teams every week. That’s why it’s called a grind, my friend. And that’s why it is different from the Big 12. Y’all will learn soon enough if this doesn’t make you see clearly.
Based on this data if both programs were in the SEC right now, Texas would be the 6th most talented team and Oklahoma would be the 4th most talented. And the gap between them and the schools behind them is minuscule with A&M less than one point behind OU and Florida and Auburn less than 1 point behind Texas. I’m sure they will argue that with the move to the SEC, their recruiting will improve, and that could happen. It probably will to some degree, but will it be enough to win an SEC title in the first 3 years? No.
Texas A&M had the Heisman Trophy winner, multiple first-round picks on the offensive line, Mike Evans, and more NFL draft picks when they joined the SEC in 2012. Yet those teams still lost 6 conference games in the first two years. Missouri meanwhile, did end up winning the SEC East in 2013 and 2014. At the time though, the SEC East was down. Georgia was not nearly as talented as they are now. Neither was Florida. Credit to Missouri for getting to the SEC title game twice, but let's not forget they lost those championship games by 17 and 29 points respectively. So if that is what you cling to, Sooner and Longhorn fans, then best of luck because it doesn’t hold much water. And it holds no water currently because the SEC is better overall than it was in 2012.
Alright so we have tackled recruiting, and the disparity between the Big 12 and SEC is wide. I promised I would get to the NFL draft numbers as well, just in case the last part was not enough evidence for the Big 12 ex-pats.
Recruiting rankings are based on NFL potential. It’s one of the only real ways to measure rankings over time, so it’s the metric most recruiting sites use. It’s no surprise then based on the recruiting rankings, that the SEC sends over DOUBLE the number of guys to the NFL than the Big 12 does on a per-team basis. I can already hear Sooners and Longhorns saying “remove Alabama and it’s not that different” but I promise you it is. Cause guess what, I did it!
Alabama had ten players drafted in 2017, twelve in 2018, ten in 2019, nine in 2020 and ten in 2021. So let’s take that out of the equation, and the remaining 13 teams generated the following:
So yeah, the whole “remove Alabama” take is garbage. Without the Crimson Tide, the SEC still sends an average of 1.74 more players per team to the NFL each year. With 13 SEC schools (excluding Bama), that comes out to between 22-23 more players drafted by the NFL each year from the SEC than the Big 12.
So, yeah, the SEC grind is real. If your eyeballs on Saturdays haven’t convinced you over the years, maybe actual statistics will. If y’all still think it won’t be hard, then I hate to say it but you don’t know football.
Before I close this out, I do want to recognize that the Big 12 has some excellent coaches who consistently outperform their talent. Gary Patterson, Matt Campbell, Mike Gundy and former coaches like Bill Snyder, and Art Briles (yikes), have been punching above their weight at their schools for a long time. Recruiting rankings and NFL draft numbers don’t tell the entire story, I realize that. They don’t define a team or measure development. But what talent does mean, is every team (for the most part) has a fighting chance. They all have the talent to beat you up and win if you aren’t on your A-game. Gone are the days when Oklahoma and Texas can show up to the field and overpower teams on talent alone.
Y’all are at the big boy table now. I hope you brought your big boy pants.