Virginia Tech, Clemson, North Carolina, & Washington State

[MyBloodRunnethOrange]

If you want your rivals to lose all/most their non-conference games and us have mediocre season after season the maybe you should root for an ACC team like NC State. See how great their recruiting is going.

All boats rise!

News flash. We've aleady been having mediocre to horrid seasons for years, while at the same time the rest of the conference has been dominating everyone. Give me back the 90s when the SEC was about equal to the other power conferences and the Vols were among the elite.
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[EricFreakingBerry]

I'm going to put it this way:

1.) Would you guys rather have a hotly competitive SEC where the SEC has won the last 7 BCS title games and Tennessee has won zero?

2.) Would you rather repeat 1998 where Tennessee is the only team not to have at least 2 losses and our rivals did the following:

* South Carolina goes 1-10 with their only win being Ball State. They even lost to Marshall!
* Auburn opened the season with a loss to Virginia. They didn't even score a point!
* LSU finished 1-7 in their last 8 games, including a loss to Kentucky.
* Vanderbilt was Vanderbilt.
* Georgia had a good year but lost critical games to us, Florida, and Georgia Tech.
* Alabama got throttled by Arkansas, had issues beating BYU, and ironically enough lost to Virginia Tech in their bowl game.
* Mississippi State somewhat lucked into the SEC Championship game but suffered an out-of-conference loss to Oklahoma State and got whipped by a bad LSU team.

Yeah, I'm choosing #2 everytime.

 

[CCTxVolFan]

A) Where do we hear the SEC is overrated and crappy? Certainly not from the mainstream sports media.

B) Why would there be a lot of love in other BCS strongholds? And how is it any different in SEC land? The talk around this site and others is usually how crappy the other BCS conferences are.

Prior to the BCS there wasn't much in the way of conference pride and 'rooting' for other SEC teams. Some of you may not remember, but in 2004 undefeated Auburn was passed up in favor of USC vs. Oklahoma. All Oklahoma had to do was basically beat Texas to make it into the game, and was subsequently destroyed 55-19.

Two years later Florida was nearly (a hundredth of a point) passed over by Michigan to play Ohio State. Michigan has already lost to Ohio. Many felt that the SEC was a weak conference and had no place in the game. Florida went on to win 41-14.

My cheering for SEC in OOC games is not so much a love of Alabama, as it is a seething hatred for the other conferences.

Those of us that remember the "SEC can't compete" and statements such as "the SEC is currently sixth, neck-and-neck with Mountain West" aren't going to root for an OOC team anytime in the foreseeable future.

SI.com - Writers - Stewart Mandel: SEC argument won't help Auburn in BCS - Tuesday November 9, 2004 6:28PM