Turns out I was too respectful of Notre Dame's football team.
Remember when I wrote and said that Notre Dame would be the seventh best team in the SEC? And everyone who wasn't an SEC fan ripped me for being an SEC homer? Only, I didn't write and say that to get attention, I wrote and said it because I meant it.
I truly believe that if the Irish played in the SEC they would have been, at best 4-4, in the conference this year.
About a week after I started saying it Las Vegas oddsmakers came out and said that Notre Dame would be the seventh best team in the SEC. So Vegas agreed with me. And, you know, they don't build those casinos by being on the wrong side of games that often.
After watching Notre Dame's performance tonight I'd like to apologize to all of you for saying that Notre Dame would be the 7th best team in the SEC.
Turns out, Notre Dame would be the tenth best team in the SEC.
Alabama, Texas A&M, Florida, Georgia, LSU, and South Carolina would all beat Notre Dame by double digits.
Vandy, Ole Miss and Mississippi State would also beat the Irish on a neutral field.
I think that Notre Dame would beat Kentucky, Auburn, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri on a neutral field.
And I'm not even 100% confident of that.
After all, Tennessee and Missouri both played better first halfs against Alabama than Notre Dame did. And no SEC team that Bama played ever trailed 35-0 this year.
Not one!
(Okay, except for Auburn, and they weren't an SEC team this year).
It wasn't just that Notre Dame was beaten, it was that they were thoroughly outclassed in all facets of the game. This wasn't football, it was complete and total domination
This game and this season represented the height of Pax SECana, the SEC is truly playing a different brand of football than the rest of the country. And the gap isn't shrinking after seven straight titles, it's growing. This year the SEC had six of the final ten teams in the BCS standings. Six! That's an unheard of level of dominance that may never be matched for the rest of college football history.
Top recruits continue to flock to the conference because the league is the best, which further cements the league's status as the best. In this year's NFL draft there's a good chance that nearly half of the first round draft picks will be from the conference.
If you have the best talent and the best coaches, well, you have the best conference.
Which is why I wrote that Alabama's win over Georgia was for the BCS title.
It was.
This Notre Dame beatdown was only a surprise to people who hadn't been paying attention to the SEC's continuing destruction of the rest of college football.
Notre Dame is fortunate it's an independent team and not a part of the SEC.
Because if the Irish were in the SEC, they'd be the tenth best team in the conference this year.
At best.
Instead of playing for the BCS title in Miami, they would have played in Birmingham's Bowl game yesterday against Pittsburgh. You know, Pittsburgh, the team that Ole Miss beat by 28 after the Panthers took Notre Dame to triple overtime in South Bend. Everyone's been saying that Notre Dame had an SEC defense for months. Who knew that they meant Auburn or Kentucky's defense?
The Fighting Irish defense was a paper leprechaun buoyed by artificial stats against weak Big Ten teams, and their offense was just bad no matter who they played. They were bound to be exposed at some point, unfortunately for them it happened today. Now, want a scary thought that should cement the SEC champ in the BCS title game for all eternity?
Absent probation it might have been Ohio State against Notre Dame for the "national" title.
