SEC dominance is both real and manufactured

There are some great football players and great football coaches in the SEC, and the league has won five straight BCS championships and seven of the 13 altogether, but a big part of the reason they have so much success is 1) the perception is being constantly reinforced by ESPN and other pundits, and 2) the SEC schedules  nonconference home patsies with relentless regularity.

Here is a list of week one matchups in the SEC:

LSU vs Oregon
Georgia vs Boise St.

Alabama vs Kent St.
Arkansas vs Missouri State
Auburn vs Utah St.
MSU @Memphis
Ole Miss vs BYU
Florida vs Florida Atlantic
Kentucky vs Western Kentucky
South Carolina vs East Carolina
Tennessee vs North Texas
Vanderbilt vs Elon

Other than Ole Miss, Georgia and LSU, this is a three-course dinner of cream puffs, directionals and 2nd-tier competition.  SEC schools only play 8 conference games, so most of their happy boosters can pencil in four wins at the start of training camp.  Go 3-5 in league and make a bowl game.  Then as BCS selection day nears, the breathlessly pro-SEC crews at Game Day, College Football Live and the BCS selection show can say of the SEC champ, “They beat 7 bowl teams and four ranked in the top 25!” Well yeah, because they all inflated their records, which inflates perception of the conference.

Here are some of the nonconference matchups the PAC-12 takes on in September:

Fresno State at Cal
Colorado at Hawaii
Oregon State at Wisconsin
UCLA at Houston
Arizona at Oklahoma State
Missouri at ASU

Texas at UCLA

Washington at Nebraska

Colorado at Ohio State

Throw in the annual games Stanford and USC play home-and-home with Notre Dame, and the fact the PAC plays nine conference games, and teams out West choose a much more challenging route to a BCS berth.

The history and tradition of SEC teams are indeed impressive, but years of this kind of scheduling has given the league, their records and perception a huge boost. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, particularly as a conference-wide practice over a number of years. One of the great sweeping reforms that NCAA realignment should usher is scheduling equity across the country. If the national champion is going to be determined by beauty contest, SEC schools shouldn’t be allowed to pad their swimsuit every year. They already have the best tan.