re: Over at ESPN, more talk of Auburn moving to East div., so.......

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Makes sense to put Auburn in the East and Missouri in the west.


How does that make sense?

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I'm guessing geography is not your favorite subject.

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You state that Arkansas, Ole Miss and Texas A&M would be the next three but by your own ranking system they are all behind Mizzou and SC?

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Historically speaking, Texas A&M, Arkansas, and Ole Miss are the "Next 3" following the "Big 6". This is not debatable.

All-Time standing in the AP Poll (1936-present, national rank):
#2 Alabama- 989 pts
#9 Tennessee- 682 pts
#11 LSU- 612 pts
#12 Auburn- 554 pts
#13 Georgia- 548 pts
#17 Florida- 487 pts
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#19 Arkansas- 439 pts
#20 Texas A&M- 365 pts
#22 Ole Miss- 347 pts
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#32 Missouri- 251 pts
#57 S. Carolina- 118 pts
#58 Mississippi State- 115 pts

Florida is closer to those "Next 3" than the "Big 6" in AP poll points... but the fact that the Gators have 3 National Titles on their resume, compared to just a single title for Texas A&M, none for Arky and Ole Miss, pushes the Gators into the top group.

Yes, since 2000 both South Carolina and Missouri have punched a bit over their weight.... meanwhile Texas A&M and Arkansas have seen some pretty "down" years for the most part compared to the generation of football that preceded the year 2000.

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I know you try to explain it away, but the facts are the facts.

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Those are the facts. And the fact that Missouri and South Carolina have out-performed Arkansas, Texas A&M, and Ole Miss in very recent times, but trail those programs handily all-time only further proves my overall point: Even with South Carolina at a historical watermark for their program, and with Mizzou playing some of their best football ever, the East still lags way behind the West in overall balance. If things return to a more normal patter, it will only be more lop-sided.

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The biggest difference in the East and the West in recent history is that Alabama has been much better than any other program and UT fell off the map.

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Alabama has ALWAYS been much better than any other program... that's not new. Yes, Tennessee being down has something to do with it, but South Carolina and even Mizzou being "up" compared to their overall history has somewhat cancelled that out.

It's not just Alabama that is creating the unbalanced power on the Western side.... LSU and Auburn have also combined to play for 4 National Titles in the past 9 seasons. Throwing that on top of the Alabama dominance is what is creating all the imbalance. Quite frankly, Georgia and Florida are the only programs really carrying their weight on the Eastern side, and even we've come up short year, after year in Atlanta.

The West is simply far better. It's been this way for nearly a decade, and its getting worse each year.

Of course Auburn wants to play in the weaker division.

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They have played LSU and the Mississippi schools and Arkansas every year for over 20 years now

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And there are kids who go their entire career without playing traditional rivals like UF and UT.

Screw that. I would prefer (but my opinions do not matter) the that Auburn stay in the West. If ya want to be the best you have beat the best.

We all know those teams are in the sec west

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When discussing relative strength the first thing everyone looks at is who won the conference. That's the gap, and that gap has been personified by Bama being better than everyone and UT falling off the map.

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Fine then. Use those goal posts then:

SEC Championships:

2015: Alabama
2014: Alabama
2013: Auburn
2012: Alabama
2011: LSU
2010: Auburn
2009: Alabama
2008: Florida
2007: LSU
2006: Florida
2005: Georgia
2004: Auburn
2003: LSU
2002: Georgia
2001: LSU

Sine 2001, the East has won 4 SEC Championships, while the West has won 11. If that doesn't define the imbalance, I don't know what will.

It's not all because of Bama either. Of those 11 Titles for the West, Alabama has 4... LSU also has 4... and Auburn has 3. I'd say that splits pretty evenly. The three programs with the most SEC Championships during the past 15 years are all in the West. That's a problem.

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There was a time when the East dominated.

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Not really. Yes, the East was top-heavy at one point, but Kentucky, Vandy, and South Carolina were still stinking it up back then, maybe even more so.

The difference with the West domination now and the East "domination" as far as conference championships were concerned from 1993-2000 was that when the East was winning titles, the West was still winning a lot of head-to-head games against the East. Back then, it was really a 3:6:3 league. The East arguably had the 3 best programs.... but they also had the 3 worst.

That's not the case now with the West. The West is not only stronger at the top, but its even stronger at the bottom (Compared Arky & MSU with UK & Vandy).

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Bama will take a downturn eventually and the East will go on another run eventually.

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Maybe so. But when Bama takes this downturn, will LSU, Auburn, Ole Miss, etc. all take a downturn at the same time? People say these things are cyclical.... but we're now 15 years into this cycle, and the western dominance is continuing to get stronger each year. Eventually folks have got to realize that things have changed. Sure, MSU may have been equivalent to Kentucky and Vandy 20 years ago, but that's not the case now. And it likely won't be the case going forward.

The East was unrealistically propped up by Florida's dominance of the 1990s. They won 5 SEC Titles in just 8 seasons. While Florida will always be good, that is unlikely to ever happen again. And while UT will certainly improve, no one wants to talk about how their program has been on a slow decline for more than 50 years now..... were the late '90s really the "classic UT" or was that a one time deal? Tennessee has 12 Top 10 finishes since 1968... half of those occurred between 1995 and 2001. Obviously the UT of the late 1990s and early 2000s was far stronger than their norm the last generation. The Vols will come back to being relevant, but they may never have another period like that ever again.

If there was ever a blip that made no historical sense, it was the 1990s and early 2000s. You had Florida and Tennessee at their absolute peaks post WW2 at the exact same time.

If you combine Tennessee and Florida football together since WW2, they've combined for 36 Top 10 finishes during the past 71 years of football (19 for Tennessee and 17 for Florida).

*17 of those 36 combined Top 10 finishes occurred in the 12 seasons from 1990-2001.
*19 of those 36 combined Top 10 finishes occurred in the other 59 seasons.

Now folks like you are trying to make the case that we are right around the corner from UT and Florida being right back at the top just like 1990-2001. But the truth is that 12-year period was by far more of an anomaly.

The reason we are where we are is Florida and Tennessee have come back to reality and are no longer playing out of their minds like they did for those 12 seasons. And Kentucky and Vandy have failed to progress as programs in the same way the Mississippi schools have done so in the past few years.

Florida has only been a football power from 1991 to 2001 and 2005 to 2010. Other then those two periods they might have a good year every now and then.