But Before We Get Carried Away….

…the new Sagarin rankings are out below, but let’s not go overboard, okay SEC?

I am referring to the following quotes, as reported by Stew Mandel:

“That’s the SEC,” said Gators defensive tackle Joe Cohen (referring to the game). “We have the speed and power.”

“Honestly, we played a lot better teams than Ohio State this year,” said Moss. “I could name four to five teams [HP: Who? Who?] out of the SEC that would play the same game against them.”

There they go again with that SEC chest-thumping.

But after what transpired Monday night, who’s to argue?

Me, for one.

Look, let’s not lose sight of things here. Is Florida faster than Ohio State? Maybe. Maybe not. And if so, it’s mostly on the defensive side. But Ohio State has 30-40 NFL guys on its roster. It is not a program filled with chopped liver.

The same mistake was made when USC crushed Oklahoma. Immediately, the calls came out that the Sooners just weren’t that talented. But that Oklahoma roster was filled with NFL players. The guys who weren’t NFL guys were good college players and winners of stiff-armed trophies. And they were fast. But despite the talent, they were made to look stupid on college football biggest stage by superior game planning, just as Ohio State was.

If you look at the offensive side of the ball, the Gators were not running by people. They did not produce a play longer than 20 yards, despite all that ‘speed’. But they were wide open in space and had no problem moving the ball against an elite defense had had squelched a very fast team in Texas early this year. Why did this happen? It happened because of a crafty offensive game plan that was rooted in an innovative offensive scheme.

But every time an upset like this happens (Note: I expected it–though not the blowout–and picked the Gators to win), those who cover college football turn to the fallback Herbstreitian explanation: Speed. The team that won HAD to have the most speed, right? The SEC is the FASTEST conference, so therefore it won this game because of its athletes.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Well, okay, then does that mean that Wisconsin is faster than Arkansas? After all, the Badgers beat the Razorbacks. They MUST be faster.

What about Penn State? Penn-freakin’-State? Are they faster than Tennessee? After all, the Nittany Lions beat ‘em.

Speed is great in football. But if football was all about speed, we’d just give the guys a baton, have a relay and call it a day. Truth is, a LOT of factors played a part in the Florida blowout–scheme, the long layoff for OSU, Troy Smith’s exploding waistline, coaching, hubris, the weakness of the Big Ten (touted on this site all year) and, yes, to a small extent the relative talent level of the two teams, especially in the trenches

But come on. This is THE Ohio State University. According to HP’s own objective rankings, Columbus is housing slightly more talent than Gainesville.

No matter. Let’s just say that the Gators won because of SEC speed and close the files on this investigation. And when the Big Ten loses, we’ll say it’s because it is slow (but strong and physical when it wins). When the Pac-10 loses, it can be because it is soft (and when it wins, um, oh right, no hackneyed cliche is then applied in that scenario).

Let’s give Urban Meyer some credit, ya know? I mean, Florida is just as fast as it was under Ron Zook. And last I checked, the closest Zook came to getting doused by Gatorade was at a fraternity party.

Good coaches do make a difference. You need the Jimmies and the Joes, but they better have the X’s and the O’s, too.