SEC Defense?

And here it is, the first article that is not really about GT. The inspiration comes from last night’s South Carolina game on ESPN. The first of what is sure to be many outpourings of adulation from ESPN towards the SEC. I think there is at least a 50% chance that ESPN commentator Jesse Palmer mutters “SEC defense” over and over again while he sleeps. Ironic considering that Jesse Palmer was quarterback for a Florida program that, under Steve Spurrier, regularly hung 50 plus points on those fabulous “SEC defenses”. (Then again, maybe thats why he likes to talk them up. See next paragraph.)

As a quick side note, anyone else think it’s a bad idea to let Jesse Palmer commentate games that Spurrier is coaching, since he played quarterback for him? Might be a little difficult to give an unbiased opinion yeah? Then again, they let Herbstreit commentate Ohio St. games, and impart all of his unbiased wisdom about “THE Ohio State University”, so it is what it is I suppose.

Anyway, let’s get back to that fabulous “SEC defense” that the commentators, especially Palmer, just couldn’t stop raving about last night. And ESPN continued to rave about today. ESPN’s SEC blogger Chris Low summed up the game by saying of South Carolina, “The offense was on top of its game, but so was the defense”.

Surely South Carolina’s defense must have been absolutely stifling right? Well, no, not exactly. They “held” Southern Miss to 404 total yards. In fact, Southern Miss started its first possession at its own 38, and proceeded to storm 40 yards in 7 plays against that fabulous “SEC defense”. That is correct, they averaged almost 6 yards per play on the drive. They only faced one third down, and that was setup by a 5 yard illegal shift penalty. Southern Miss only mustered 5 yards in two plays, setting up third and ten. And then, amazingly, they converted. Words cannot describe my surprise. No “SEC defense” had ever conceded a third and ten! Kentucky once gave up that third and 6 when outside linebacker Skiffy McGee had a seizure in the middle of the play, but an “SEC defense” giving up third and ten is simply inconceivable. (My condolences to the McGee family, I still cant believe outraged fans lynched poor Skiffy immediately following that game).

So what happened after the amazing third and ten conversion? Well, South Carolina’s stifling defense stopped the drive by picking off a pass that a Southern Miss receiver bobbled right to ‘em.

Way to go cocks! The second drive showcased more stifling defense. This time, Southern Miss only made it down to Carolina’s 8 yard line, aided by a 55 yard pass, before Carolina shut them down by forcing the QB to fumble the shotgun snap on third down. How do you force a QB to fumble a shotgun snap you ask? Yeah, I don’t get it either.

As I stated above, South Carolina gave up 404 yards to Southern Miss. That’s a bunch. In fact, 404 yards was the 40^th best average last season out of 120 FBS teams. It would have been 4^th in the SEC and 3^rd in the ACC. Which means that Southern Miss, a Conference USA team, put up significantly better than average total yards against an SEC defense. When you further consider that a lot of the total yards that make up the national averages are compiled against teams in weaker conferences, like the sunbelt, MEAC etc, then that means that either Southern Miss has a much better than average offense, even for a BCS conference team, or ESPN is full of &*%$ with this “SEC defense” stuff.

So what is the bottom line here? Am I really saying that SEC defenses are no good? No. Some SEC teams play great defense, and some play good defense. But not all of them. Does the SEC have a good argument that, as a conference, they play the best defense in college football? Maybe so. The Big Ten can also logically make that claim. But I think its safe to say that the gap between those two and the other BCS conferences is not as big as the media often portrays, and not nearly as big as most fans of the SEC like to think. Believe it or not, it is possible, and in some cases even relatively easy, to score against an SEC defense.

The jury is still out on the gamecocks, because they have only played one game, but I didn’t think they looked very good on defense last night. In fact, quite the opposite, I would say they have real cause for concern. The best I can say for them is that, after letting what should have been an overmatched team march up and down the field on them all night, they did a good job of keeping them out of the end zone. Of course, that effort was aided by a little luck, like some dropped shotgun snaps and bobbled passes.

As much as I would like to be wrong, I am afraid that next week UGA will light up those clowns for at least 30 points. Of course, that does not mean UGA wins. South Carolina looked pretty good on offense, so they could outscore the dawgs. But, you know, it’ll be tough to score that many points on an “SEC defense”.