Facts don’t lie and these statistics are hard to skew, the BCS era has been all SEC, Saban and Bama.
BCS Era Ending as SEC, Nick Saban and Alabama Era
By: Larry Burton
“Turn out the lights, the party’s over. They say that all good things must end….” As “Dandy” Don Merideth used to sing once the conclusion of Monday Night Football was apparent.
As the BCS ends in college football, somewhere in my head I hear Don singing that once again. No matter the outcome of the final chapter, the conclusion of how the BCS era will be remembered has already been written. This was the age of the SEC, Nick Saban and Alabama.
The BCS came to life in 1998 and in its inaugural year Tennessee bested Florida State 23-16 to become the first winner and the first in a long line of SEC winners, but it would be five years until the SEC won its second.
That one came to LSU, who in 2004, beat Oklahoma 21-14 in the Sugar Bowl. Then three years later, Florida curb stomped Ohio State 41-14 in a game that wasn’t even that close. This was only the ninth year of the BCS and the SEC had already won one third of all the games, more than any other conference.
But now the rout was on and for the rest of the BCS era, up to the last year which still has to be decided, the SEC swept every BCS game and made history by having two SEC teams play for the title in 2011 in a very anticipated rematch between LSU and Alabama which Alabama repaid LSU for their only loss by humiliating them in LSU’s home state at the Sugar Bowl 21-0.
With one BCS Championship left to go, here how the conference winners look:
SEC – 9 wins – with the only loss coming to another SEC team, SEC undefeated in BCS Games
5 Different SEC teams winning titles –
Alabama – Three Titles – Nick Saban – 3 wins as coach
Florida – Two Titles – Urban Meyer – 2 wins as coach
LSU – Two Titles – Nick Saban 1 win as coach – Les Miles 1 win as coach
Tennessee – One Title – Phillip Fulmer coach
Auburn – One Title – Gene Chizik coach
Big Twelve – 2 wins –
Oklahoma – One Title – Bob Stoops coach
Texas – One Title – Mack Brown coach
ACC – 1 win –
Florida State – One Title – Bobby Bowden coach
Big East – 1 win –
Miami – 1 win – Larry Coker coach
Big Ten – 1 win –
Ohio State – 1 win – Jim Tressel coach
Pac 12 – 0 wins –
Only win by USC vacated due to cheating scandal
Others – 0 wins –
No other conference or independent has ever won a title
Final tally of winners with one year remaining –
Conference – SEC – 9 titles – the rest of the 111 college football teams – 5 titles
Coach – Nick Saban – 4 titles – Urban Meyer – 2 titles – 8 other coaches – 1 title each
Team – Alabama – 3 Titles – Florida / LSU – 2 Titles – all other teams – 1 title
To put it simply, the SEC has won more BCS titles than all the other conferences combined. This is not just domination, this is total embarrassment.
Nick Saban isn’t just the best coach of the BCS era, he is at least twice the coach of the person at number two.
Alabama doesn’t just have the record for most wins, but the title for most dominating games. They didn’t just win their three titles, they beat up their opponents, took their lunch money and left with their girl friends.
And for those who want to say that Bama is only relevant lately, the prior system was called the Bowl Coaliation Championship and Alabama won one out of three of those. Other winners were Florida State and Nebraska, but once again, Alabama had the most dominating championship game by trouncing number one Miami 34-13 that was never that close in reality.
With Alabama poised as the early favorite to win yet another title, the SEC could close the book on the BCS era by winning twice as many titles as the rest of college football combined. That is simply a staggering statistic.
Should they win that championship, Alabama will end the BCS series with four titles, doubling the record of the closest entire conference behind it. That too is simply a mind blowing statistic in the days of “pairity” and bears restating once again. Alabama will have won twice as many titles as any non SEC conference.
And finally, should they win this last BCS contest in the fabled Rose Bowl, a source of history and lore for Alabama, Nick Saban will walk away with five titles of the 15 titles. In other words, Nick Saban will have won one third of all the BCS trophies in existence. He will have won as many titles as all independent confereces, the PAC 12, the Big East, the ACC and Big Twelve combined.
In other words, Nick Saban would have the same number of wins as the rest of the non SEC teams combined.
These stats do not simply show that the SEC, Alabama and Nick Saban have been the dominate players of the BCS era, they put a huge exclamation mark on it.
While it would be hard to have such domination in the future, with Nick Saban having a contract at Alabama until 2020, it’s not hard to imagine that it could happen yet again.
Larry is an award winning writer whose work has appeared in almost every college football venue. Now he primarily writes for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. Follow Larry on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter
