It just means less in the SEC
The SEC faced yet another embarrassment this past weekend in the College Baseball World Series. And it comes on the heels of one of the most embarrassing off-field performances in recent memory at their media days.
What’s become obvious about the SEC, which now includes Texas and Oklahoma, is that beyond the teams’ ability to win every single hypothetical, on-paper matchup, they can never have enough advantages or preferential treatment.
The utter meltdown over one year of the College Football Playoff selection not going their way is still ongoing, for example.
READ: SEC Embarrassingly Hands Out Analytics Research To Support Superiority Arguments
Then there’s the College Baseball World Series. After lobbying heavily for the overwhelming strength of the conference, mostly by playing each other and complaining about how hard it is, the SEC got 13 teams into the first round. That first round was just completed over the weekend. And spoiler alert: it did not go well for the SEC.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey. (Photo by Johnnie Izquierdo/Getty Images)
SEC Baseball Once Again Disproves Narratives
Of the 13 teams the SEC sent to the College Baseball World Series, a remarkable nine lost in the first round.
Even better, it wasn’t just the sheer number of teams that lost, but the perceived quality that made the SEC’s flameout so spectacular.
No. 1 Vanderbilt and No. 2Texas both lost, the first time since national seeding started in 1999 that the top two seeds both lost in regionals. Vanderbilt also became the first No. 1 seed in the current format to fail to reach its regional finals, and the first to lose this early since 2015. Special stuff.
The Georgia Bulldogs also lost, apparently too focused on collectively unbuttoning as many buttons as possible on their uniforms to focus on winning.
They even got trolled by the Murray State Racers, who upset Ole Miss to advance.
North Carolina Tar Heels fans chanted “ACC” at the Sooners, just to rub it in. The ACC thoroughly dominated the SEC this past weekend, going 8-4.
Thank goodness for Florida Gators basketball, right?
The four remaining teams in the baseball tournament include Arkansas, Auburn, LSU and Tennessee, so the SEC still has a shot at getting one of its 13 teams deep into the tournament. But my goodness, what an embarrassment for the conference, for ESPN, and for the obsessive focus on acting as if the SEC walks on an astral plane that’s unreachable by mere mortals.
What the conference and its supporters fail to realize, as always, is that games are played on the field, not in hypothetical message board debates, where the outcomes are decided on the fame and history of the programs involved. And this is why the SEC can simultaneously be the best conference, in some sports, and also be extremely overrated.
No matter what, at least there’s one thing fans, who bizarrely root for an entire conference instead of just their own school, will always be able to enjoy superiority in: lobbying and self-importance. And doesn’t that mean more than winning anyway?
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