Interesting Opinion On the Overall Decline In the League's Strength

[Vantage 8 dude]

While some would argue that the SEC is still the premier league in college football, it appears to me that top to bottom the overall strength and quality of the league has slipped over the past couple of years. Many consider other places such as the Big 10 as having closed, if not overtaken, the SEC. Whether one agrees or not, I read an article yesterday on Yahoo Sports that basically made such a case.

In making their argument the tone of the article attributed much of the decline in the lack of truly solid hires at many SEC schools. In an effort to try to catch up to the overwhelming dominance of Alabama, and more specifically Saban, the author postulated that many programs have more or less panicked and often haven't done their "due diligence" when it comes to the past success/experience with other established programs. The piece cited the hiring of such coaches as Butch Jones (one of the former "hot" up-and-comers when hired at Tennessee), Huey Freeze (in the author's opinion as suspect hire from the beginning), USCe's Muschamp despite his past failure(s) at UF and even McElwain's less than stellar history before coming to the Gators. Not surprisingly the one they really pointed out was the huge fail of Oregeron during his major fail while at Ole Miss. The almost (unnecessary) panic hire of EO by LSU was also cited as absolute horrible decision making by their AD.

Despite Bielema's previous good success at UW, his difficulty in bringing this same performance to the SEC has obviously been a surprise and major disappointment thus far. Sumlin's tenure has also been spotty; however, his overall record has been better than's CBB's.

Not sure whether or not I totally agree with all the points raised; however, top-to-bottom the quality of most SEC football programs does seem to have slipped noticeably over the past couple of years. At least it raises some questions and debate that does get one to think.....