Every year we like to have a little fun by looking back over the past few seasons and determining which SEC schools have had the most on-field/on-court success against one another. Who are the real football schools? Who have become basketball schools? And most importantly, which SEC fanbases have had the most opportunities to gloat in recent years?
Below you’ll find what we call our Brag-O-Meter. (Pet peeve: People who say “oh-meter” as if the thing in your car is a “speed-oh-meter.”) We’ll show which programs have won the most SEC football games the past four seasons (2008 through 2011). We’ll show which programs have won the most SEC basketball games over that span, too (2008-09 through 2011-12). We’ll total ‘em all up and we’ll even award bonus points for SEC titles and national crowns.
First, a few ground rules:
1. Since the SEC plays eight regular-season football games each year and 16 regular-season basketball games, we multiplied the number of football wins by two. That way league football wins and league basketball wins will count just the same. So again: Two points for a football win, one point for a hoops victory. (And all games count, even the non-division contests. Sorry, Coach Spurrier.)
2. We’re not including non-conference wins because some schools dare to play big-time foes while others feast on cupcakes. Plus, SEC fans will taunt Ball State and Alabama A&M fans anyway. This is about SEC on SEC warfare.
3. Sorry, but we don’t include baseball, women’s basketball, softball, or any other non-revenue sport. If it’s not football or men’s basketball, we’re not counting it. (This is your cue, South Carolina fans, to add up the Cocks’ baseball wins and add them in via the comment boxes.)
4. To add some spice, we’re handing out a five-point bonus for SEC regular-season titles in football and basketball. We’re also tossing out 10-point bonuses for BCS or national basketball titles. Let’s face it, if a league team wins a national crown, there’s gonna be a whole lot of crowing done by its fans.
5. We aren’t giving added points for division titles in football or basketball or for SEC Tournament titles in hoops. All are nice, but the regular-season crown is the goal and that’s what takes the most work from the start of the season to the finish.
With all that said, here’s how the SEC’s football programs stacked up from 2008 through 2011. (And remember, all league win totals have been doubled to equal basketball.)
| School | Football Points | SEC Titles | NCAA Titles |
| Alabama | 56 | 1 | 2 |
| Florida | 44 | 1 | 1 |
| LSU | 44 | 1 | 0 |
| Georgia | 40 | 0 | 0 |
| S. Carolina | 36 | 0 | 0 |
| Auburn | 34 | 1 | 1 |
| Arkansas | 34 | 0 | 0 |
| Miss. State | 22 | 0 | 0 |
| Tennessee | 22 | 0 | 0 |
| Ole Miss | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| Kentucky | 18 | 0 | 0 |
| Vanderbilt | 14 | 0 | 0 |
And now a look at the basketball results (which did not have to be multiplied by two).
| School | Basketball Points | SEC Titles | NCAA Titles |
| Kentucky | 48 | 2 | 1 |
| Florida | 41 | 1 | 0 |
| Tennessee | 39 | 0 | 0 |
| Vanderbilt | 39 | 0 | 0 |
| Miss. State | 35 | 0 | 0 |
| Alabama | 34 | 0 | 0 |
| Ole Miss | 31 | 0 | 0 |
| LSU | 25 | 1 | 0 |
| Auburn | 25 | 0 | 0 |
| S. Carolina | 23 | 0 | 0 |
| Arkansas | 22 | 0 | 0 |
| Georgia | 22 | 0 | 0 |
Interesting. So if we compared the two sports for each program (example: Alabama equaled 22 more football points than basketball points over that four-year span) and then spread them out on a grid, the SEC’s schools — at least for the past four seasons — would line up as football or basketball schools thusly:
| Big FB Advantage | School | Points + |
| Alabama | 22 FB | |
| LSU | 19 FB | |
| Georgia | 18 FB | |
| S. Carolina | 13 FB | |
| Arkansas | 12 FB | |
| Auburn | 9 FB | |
| Florida | 3 FB | |
| Ole Miss | 11 BB | |
| Miss. State | 13 BB | |
| Tennessee | 17 BB | |
| Vanderbilt | 25 BB | |
| Big BB Advantage | Kentucky | 30 BB |
Since the 2008 football season, only five SEC fanbases have actually had more reason to cheer in basketball than in football: Kentucky (obviously), Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Mississippi State (who just ran their coach out of town) and Ole Miss.
But now let’s cut to the chase. Below are the combined points (2 points for a regular-season football win, 1 point for a regular-season basketball win) for football and basketball with the bonus points (five for an SEC title, 10 for a national title) tacked on for good measure. These are the programs whose fans have had the most to boast about over the past four seasons:
| School | Total Win Points | SEC Title Points | NCAA Title Points | Total Points |
| Alabama | 90 | 5 | 20 | 115 |
| Florida | 85 | 10 | 10 | 105 |
| Kentucky | 66 | 10 | 10 | 86 |
| LSU | 69 | 10 | 0 | 79 |
| Auburn | 59 | 5 | 10 | 74 |
| Georgia | 62 | 0 | 0 | 62 |
| Tennessee | 61 | 0 | 0 | 61 |
| S. Carolina | 59 | 0 | 0 | 59 |
| Miss. State | 57 | 0 | 0 | 57 |
| Arkansas | 56 | 0 | 0 | 56 |
| Vanderbilt | 53 | 0 | 0 | 53 |
| Ole Miss | 51 | 0 | 0 | 51 |
And there you have it. By our way of tallying things, the top four combined football and basketball programs over the last four seasons have been Alabama, Florida, Kentucky and LSU.
Only three school won multiple SEC regular-season titles in that period: Florida (one in football, one in hoops), Kentucky (two in basketball), and LSU (one on the gridiron, one on the court).
Five national crowns were nabbed in all: Alabama (two in football), Auburn (one in football), Florida (one in football), and Kentucky (one in basketball).
And the dregs of the conference over the last four years? Well, that’d be Ole Miss (dead last), Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Mississippi State.
That leaves Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina in the middle of the pack, though the Tigers’ dual SEC and BCS crowns in football — “Thanks, Cam Newton!” — give them a leg up on their rather average brothers.
(If you catch where we’ve transcribed a number incorrectly as we went from our Excel sheets to the site, just make a note of it. Like I had to ask.)
