SEC Bias Infiltrates the Coaches Ranks

USA Today put out their annual pre-season NCAA college football coaches poll today and this thing is a joke. Based on this disgrace I am not even going to bother paying attention to this poll this season. The SEC bias as being the toughest and best league in football has now breached the ranks of this poll. Lets take a look to see what I am talking about.

Check out the USA Today Top 25 Coaches’ Poll by clicking here

Now scroll down to the bottom to see who the coaches are in this poll. I am actually going to paste this info in so you can see (Please note names in bold):

The USA TODAY Board of Coaches is made up of 60 head coaches at Division I-A institutions. All are members of the American Football Coaches Association. This season’s board: Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech; Mike Bellotti, Oregon; Bret Bielema, Wisconsin; Larry Blakeney, Troy; Bobby Bowden, Florida State; Tommy Bowden, Clemson; Jeff Bower, Southern Mississippi; Art Briles, Houston; Mack Brown, Texas; Bill Callahan, Nebraska; Neil Callaway, UAB; Lloyd Carr, Michigan; Mario Cristobal, Florida International; Sylvester Croom, Mississippi State; Bill Cubit, Western Michigan; Mark Dantonio, Michigan State; Butch Davis, North Carolina; Bill Doba, Washington State; Randy Edsall, Connecticut; Dennis Franchione, Texas A&M; Phillip Fulmer, Tennessee; Jeff Genyk, Eastern Michigan; Joe Glenn, Wyoming; Jim Grobe, Wake Forest; Dan Hawkins, Colorado; Pat Hill, Fresno State; Steve Kragthorpe, Louisville; Mike Leach, Texas Tech; Rocky Long, New Mexico; Sonny Lubick, Colorado State; Bill Lynch, Indiana; Doug Martin, Kent State; Les Miles, LSU; Shane Montgomery, Miami (Ohio); Hal Mumme, New Mexico State; Joe Novak, Northern Illinois; Houston Nutt, Arkansas; Tom O’Brien, North Carolina State; George O’Leary, Central Florida; Gary Patterson, TCU; Chris Petersen, Boise State; Mark Richt, Georgia; Mike Riley, Oregon State; Rich Rodriguez, West Virginia; Greg Schiano, Rutgers; Howard Schnellenberger, Florida Atlantic; Mark Snyder, Marshall; Frank Solich, Ohio; Steve Spurrier, South Carolina; Rick Stockstill, Middle Tennessee State; Bob Stoops, Oklahoma; Jeff Tedford, California; Joe Tiller, Purdue; Bob Toledo, Tulane; Dick Tomey, San Jose State; Jim Tressel, Ohio State; Tommy Tuberville, Auburn; Charlie Weis, Notre Dame; Tyrone Willingham, Washington; Ron Zook, Illinois.

Ok what did you notice? I noticed 7 SEC coaches are part of this poll, that is more than 10% of the entire group of coaches. Now lets take a look and see how many SEC teams received votes/points:

LSU = 1,372
Florida = 1,278
Georgia = 604
Auburn = 595
Tennessee = 583
Arkansas = 360
South Carolina = 90
Alabama = 16
Kentucky = 1

So what do these numbers tell us? They tell us that the coaches gave points to 9 out of 12 teams in the SEC. This is a complete joke. There were not even 9 SEC teams that finished with an overall winning record last year. Who are these SEC coaches trying to fool? It is more sour grapes and complaining by the likes of Les Miles. These coaches are making excuses for their teams; excuses that their schedules are SOOOOOO hard that they deserve a break at the end of the year and should be playing in meaningful BCS games. Well last time I looked you need to play the schedule and conference games you were dealt and if you perform well in those games than you deserve to play for a title. Instead of the majority of SEC coaches scheduling tough out of conference opponents like Southern Cal, they are taking the easy route and hiding behind the likes of Tulane, Middle Tenn St. and the Louisiana, Lafayettes of the world and saying that their conference schedules are SOOOOOOOO extremely difficult that they can schedule Western Wahoo St. for homecoming to give their players a break. Just look around the country you blinded Southern boys….USC is doing a home and away with Ohio St. Notre Dame is picking up Oklahoma for a series. This is the way to beef up a schedule and to gain respect. These 7 coaches that are part of the USA Today poll are simply trying to raise the profile of their programs and their league and they should be held accountable. Keep in mind this is the same poll that gave Duke (0-12 last year) and Memphis (2-10 last year) points this year. Cocahes’ picks should be made public for all to see.

I can not wait for this season to start and all eyes will be on the CAL/TENN early season matchup to see just how good the SEC and Pac-10 really are. I am hoping Tennessee is the favorite in this game so I can bet the farm on CAL. This is a revenge game and CAl will show up in the first half this time around.

Stay tuned for our NCAA preview and NFL preview picks.

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