The Southeastern Conference’s Long Road to National Disdain

By Michael Collins | Jun 9, 2015

The Southeastern Conference has become the most easy to dislike and cheer against conference in the nation…but, how did we get here anyway?

Death, taxes….and hatred of the SEC. All constants in today’s society.

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Ask anyone who hails from a school outside the SEC, or any fan who cheers for a team in any other conference besides the SEC, “Which conference do you hate the most?”. Invariably, the answer will almost always come back SEC. It’s become a Pavlovian reaction to the question, with people salivating at the chance to bash those bunch of ignorant rednecks down south.

The reasoning varies, but the sentiment remains the same.

“I’m sick of hearing about the SEC and having them pushed on us every week.”

So what did it take for the Southeastern Conference to become the bane of so many’s existence? How did the SEC grow into the beast that everyone else is trying to slay?

You have to go back, quite a ways actually, to see how this has evolved.

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The SEC didn’t become gum on the soles of the rest of the nation overnight. I can remember growing up in the 1970s, listening to my dad and his friends arguing sports. When the topic of college football inevitably arose, it was about team. Whose team was better…whose team had bested the others in head to head meetings…whose coach had what it took to win.

Outside of knowing in which conference these teams resided (and talking the appropriate corresponding bowl game smack) there was little to no mention of conference.

Lets face it, until big money started being involved with these conferences and their memberships, very little thought was given to them other than a way to divide up the nation. There was a geographic hierarchy to how teams were organized, and to think of becoming affiliated with a conference that could require more than a few hours on the road for a game was unheard of.

Teams moved from conference to conference in keeping with their geographic rivals. As conferences morphed, folded and merged there was still a sense of normality to the cartography of a conference map.

But as advertising dollars, television contracts and payouts to team found new heights, conferences began to use their influence to sway schools their way. The bonds of geographic shackles had been broken by modern travel and large budgets, and schools were no longer afraid of alienating fans who could easily watch on television.

When the ACC landed previously independent Florida State in 1992 it was a sign of things to come. Schools began to examine where they could pull in the biggest year-end payoff rather than who would provide the top competition for their teams.

As the 1990s progressed, more and more the talk of conference vs. conference began to emerge from both fans and the media. In 1999, the ACC-Big Ten basketball challenge was organized, which pitted a rotation of teams from each conference in a series of games. For the first time outside of college football bowl games, fans were given a reason to cheer for rivals within their conference.

As college football moved from championships being decided by polling sportswriters and coaches to a preset national championship game — called the Bowl Alliance in 1995 and eventually moving into what became known as the BCS — the idea of conference pride began to really take root.

Sep 27, 2014; Columbus, OH, USA; Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Tommy Tuberville directs his team to try to block a field goal attempted by the Ohio State Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium. Ohio State won the game 50-28. Mandatory Credit: Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports

The BCS gave birth to some media-friendly championship matchups, and the inevitable afterbirth of questions and accusations by fans on the legitimacy of the system. This inquest came to a head in 2004, when the SEC’s Auburn Tigers went undefeated, and were shut out of the championship game (because of a low preseason ranking) in favor of a completely overmatched Oklahoma team who was annihilated by USC (a championship later vacated due to NCAA violations).

The fallout was terrible, as both Auburn fans and supporters of the SEC screamed flag-on-the-play to the BCS…but it was ESPN and the other college football broadcasting networks who really took notice.

The groundwork was laid in that 2004 season for media-driven SEC pathos and the proof in the pudding for how tough it was to play in this conference. Tommy Tuberville’s Tigers were the martyrs that paved the way for the conference to flex its muscle.

The partnerships between the SEC, ESPN, CBS and others stood front and center, and suddenly the best conference in the nation was getting the most media coverage, which helped recruiting, which in turn helped make the conference stronger and more appealing – not only to players, but to schools who were looking to cash in.

By 2006, the Florida Gators began the long run of SEC football national champions, and with each passing year, the chant of “S-E-C, S-E-C” grew louder, while the numbers of those suffering from SEC-overload and fatigue increased accordingly.

The swagger displayed by SEC fans was something that had been reserved for single schools, and now you had 12 (soon to be 14) fan bases banding together in an elephantine display of pride and exhibition of pestiferous behavior — regardless of school — to rub it in the collective noses of whomever the out of conference opponent may be.

When the SEC Network made its much ballyhooed debut in 2014, it was obvious that this wasn’t just a passing fancy in the south.

And then came the hate…

The more the SEC won and fans gloated, the more the rest of the nation formed allegiances to lay siege to their braggadocio. Chatrooms and forums are filled with the crucifixion of any SEC fan who dares to show ardor for a conference rather than a team, and the accusations of “cheering for a conference because your team sucks” have become the primary barb thrown at such college sports heretics.

And here we are today, two years removed from the last time the SEC won a football championship and three years since a basketball championship.

Jan 12, 2015; Arlington, TX, USA; An Ohio State Buckeyes fans holds a sign before the game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Oregon Ducks in the 2015 CFP National Championship Game at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

And yet the chant goes on…as does the hate.

Fans outside the SEC have reveled in the fact that the king of the roost resides elsewhere, and they have decried the decade of dominance as nothing more than favoritism rooted in a system and its pundits. It was all a mirage..the Southeastern Conference was never really that good.

And yet the recruits and money keep pouring in…to the tune of a record $31.2 million payout per school in 2015, and more 5-star prospects than you can shake a crystal football at on the way into the conference.

Proof that hate can only fuel success.

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