By STEVE EUBANKS
FOXSportsSouth.com
Jan. 11, 2010
It's well known by now that Auburn's win in Tempe was the fifth consecutive BCS championship for the SEC and the sixth title for the conference in the past eight years. Going back to Steve Spurrier's win at Florida, the SEC has won eight of the past 15 national championships. No other conference is close.
Since 1996, Florida has three titles, LSU two and Tennessee, Alabama and Auburn one apiece. And if it weren't for the strange configurations of an indecipherable BCS computer system, Auburn would have played for another championship in 2004.
SEC teams have won with fast, explosive offenses and with plodding, ground-control offenses. They have won with defensive-centric teams and teams that put up 500 yards and 40 points a game. They've won with the spread and with the power-I.
They've won indoors and out, in warm and cold, rain and sunshine. They've won with Heisman Trophy winners and with teams that sported few individual stars. And they've won with fiery, extroverted coaches and with guys on the sidelines who looked like they missed their sitting for "American Gothic."
So how is that possible? What is it about the Southeastern Conference that creates so many national champions out of so many different teams with such disparate coaches? Is there something in the water east of Dallas and south of Cincinnati?
No, it's much simpler than that.
It turns out the adage is true. Size matters. It's not flash, speed, special teams or third-down conversion percentages: SEC teams win championships because they are bigger than everybody else.
Nowhere was that more evident than Monday's BCS championship in Glendale, Ariz. Much was made of Oregon's high-octane offense, but the Ducks' speed turned out to be irrelevant because their offensive line was trapped among giants.Oregon showed up averaging more than 300 yards on the ground. Auburn held the Ducks to 75, not because of scheme or stunts or blitz packages, but because Nick Fairley and his defensive mates outweighed the Ducks by more than 30 pounds a man.
On the other side of the ball, Cam Newton was bigger than nine of Oregon's 11 defensive starters. Granted the Ducks did a fantastic job of containing Newton for the most part, but when the Tigers needed two or three yards, everybody knew they were going to get it. When the opposing quarterback is bigger than all your defensive backs, all your linebackers and all but two of your interior linemen, you've got a problem in short-yardage situations.
Auburn's offensive star turned out to be freshman Michael Dyer, who at 5-foot-9 is the same height as Oregon's LaMichael James, the nation's leading rusher. But Dyer outweighs James by 30 pounds, and he ran behind teammates who were 20 to 50 pounds heavier than the men they were blocking. Given the numbers, it's amazing Oregon kept the score as close as it did.
The same was true with the SEC's other championship teams. Alabama was bigger than Texas, and even though Florida had three of the fastest football players on the planet, the Gators beat Oklahoma because they fielded larger men than the Sooners. Both LSU and Florida outsized Ohio State, and the average Bengal Tiger on Nick Saban's first national championship team was 20 pounds heavier than his opponent.
Even non-national champion SEC teams have an edge. When Hawaii took the field against Georgia in the 2008 Sugar Bowl, coach June Jones told his Warriors, "Don't look at them." Unfortunately it's hard not to look when the man in front of you takes up your entire field of vision.
Up and the down the rosters, from Kentucky to Florida, Arkansas to South Carolina, the numbers don't lie. Fans from other conferences can boast about their skill players and argue about the strength of this schedule or that. But when it comes to head-to-head matchups, the scales continue to tip, quite literally, in favor of the SEC.
