SEC Fans Have To Be Torn Over Bama-A&M Game

November 9th, 2012 10:07 AM║ Posted By: John Pennington ║ Permalink ║ Schools: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt
Tags: Alabama, Randy Travis, SEC, Tide

This weekend’s big Alabama-Texas A&M clash in Tuscaloosa will grab the interest of a whole lotta Southeastern Conference football fans. And not just for the obvious “it’s a big game” reason.

Think about it.

For those SEC fans who want the league to capture yet another BCS championship — the conference’s seventh in a row — Alabama is by far the best bet to capture said title. No other SEC team has anything other than a very long shot chance of even reaching the championship game. If you want the league to remain on top, you almost have to be cheering for the Crimson Tide at this point.

But to quote Randy Travis — who must be a heckuva guy to party with — “on the other hand,” another Alabama championship would just aid Nick Saban in his “process” of building the Tide into an unstoppable juggernaut of John Calipari/Kentucky basketball proportions. SEC rivals might like title #7 for the sake of rubbing everyone else’s nose in it, but can they possibly root for Bama to pull further away from their own schools? After all, that’ll just leave Tide fans to rub every other SEC fan’s nose in it.

And to flip things again, how many SEC fans would want Texas A&M — newcomer Texas A&M — to be the team to knock off Alabama? The Aggies and quarterback Johnny Manziel have already shown that big offense can win in the rough, tough SEC. What kind of message would it send if the Ags could whoop, howdy and gig ‘em their way to victory tomorrow? You can bet a lot of Big XII fans as well as a lot of national media folks would say that an A&M dethroning of Bama would show that the SEC ain’t all that after all.

So who ya got in this one? Pulling for Alabama because you want the SEC to win its seventh crown in a row? Or because you don’t want one of the league’s newbies to step in and do what none of the old members could do?

Or are you pulling for Texas A&M in hopes that someone/anyone can slow the Saban train in Tuscaloosa?

Here’s guessing a lot of SEC fans will be split come 3:30pm ET tomorrow.

« UM’s Freeze Tries To Be Nice, VU’s Franklin Says There’s No Need To Be

SEC Headlines – 11/9/12 »

13 comments

Newest | Oldest

AndrewMartin

The only time an SEC team doesn't win the national championship anymore is when another SEC team beats them! Gig 'em Aggies! Btw, how far should the Aggies jump in the polls? Should be in top 10 which is dominated by SEC.

GatorBuc2

I say prove yourself on the field. If Aggies win then good for them. I think the Aggies will be a force to deal with in the future.

dynamitefan2

The anti-SEC press is just waiting for Mizzou or A&M to knock off one of the big SEC teams. So they can proclaim the SEC as Weak. Funny thing is A&M's best player has never played a down of Big XII football.

NatanElias

From what I've seen, all the fans in the US pulling together -- or apart -- have never scored a singe point. So what's the point with this?

alamoaggie08

...and let's not forget the $20 mil or however much money the league gains from a national championship. I'm not into conspiracy theories (or at least beyond the NBA and David Stern), but it wouldn't suprise me if the refs are a little "harder" on A&M than Alabama and let more 50-50 calls go the Tide's way. I would like to think the SEC and Mike Slive are above all that, and I truly believe they are, but it would not suprise me.

John at MrSEC moderator

@alamoaggie08

If you go into a game looking for bad officiating, you're going to see bad officiating.

That said, the SEC isn't going to tell its officiating crews to bend the rules for one team over another. If that happened, eventually, one official on that crew would talk about it to a friend, wife or son. It would get out. And that could destroy a conference.

Also, if the SEC ever put officials in that position of power, just how much money would said officials be able to blackmail the conference for... $1 million, $10 million, $20 million? "Pay up or we rat you out and bring you down."

And what if an official on the "fixin' crew" needed to be fired someday? Think he wouldn't have some leverage against that?

There are blown calls in every game and every fan thinks that every blown call goes against his or her team. Trust me, five years of covering every SEC school has taught me that. But I assure you, Mike Slive and the SEC's presidents are way too smart to put themselves in a position where their football refs could own them and/or destroy them.

Not trying to be hard on you -- I appreciate you coming here and reading our site on a regular basis -- but this is one of those old chestnuts that gets tossed around quite a bit. Unfortunately, it doesn't really make sense if people think about it.

Again, many thanks for visiting,

John

alamoaggie08

@John at MrSEC

haha yeah i know that. i watch too much nba, where officiating scandals have already been proven. ;-) i think the biggest adjustments i've had to make is refs are a lot more lenient on pass interference than the big 12, which is no suprise. it's a tough judgement call to make. one thing i like about football is the refs shouldn't (and that's a big SHOULDN'T) have has much influence on the game compared to my other favorite sports (basketball and soccer). the only game i (and everyone else, including the announcers) felt the refs were leaning one way was the la tech game, and those were conference usa refs, so draw your own conclusion.

John at MrSEC moderator

@AustinVol @alamoaggie08

Yes. Couldn't have just been bad calls. The league had to have directed those officials to cheat your Vols.

In doing so, the league sure gave a whole lot of power to the officials on that field. I suspect they all have their own Cayman Islands at this point because all they'd have to do is let it leak out to anyone that they'd cheated and the SEC house would come down on Slive's head.

For the record, Fulmer complained about the calls. It is possible to have bad calls that are just bad calls, I would think. Fulmer didn't say one word about a conspiracy as I recall. So no one should call him an idiot conspiracy theorist.

John

AustinVol

@alamoaggie08 Don't be too apologetic. Of course it's ridiculous and far-fetched, but it's interesting that there have been no "costly" upsets in the SEC Title game since Slive took office....and the officiating in the 2004 SEC Championship game was particularly interesting. If you're ever undefeated heading into Atlanta, go ahead and book those tickets.

From ESPN:

"Tennessee might have pulled off the upset if not for three crucial penalties. Cedric Houston had a 70-yard touchdown run wiped out by a yellow flag, and a holding call negated a 44-yard pass from Clausen to Robert Meachem.

Also, Campbell threw a 53-yard scoring pass to Devin Aromashodu -- putting the Tigers ahead to stay late in the third quarter -- after an interference penalty on Roshaun Fellows extended the drive.

Tennessee was livid about the calls.

"In 13 years, I've never criticized the officials, and many times I've taken up for the officials," Fulmer said. "I'm not going to cross that line now, but I'll be real anxious to see the film. That's all I'm going to say."'

Fulmer is an idiot conspiracy theorist too.

mb6783

Pulling for bama in hopes that soon Saban will get bored and make another run at the NFL or take another CFB job outside the SEC.

stonejonathan

BTHO Bama! Whoop!!

AustinVol

Not much of a dilemma. Why are there "Conference Fans"? What do UGA or Arkansas or Missouri gain from Bama winning a title? They get to brag about getting beat by the "champion". Screw Slive and hisw gerrymandering on behalf of his beloved golden geese. Gig em!!!!!!!!

badbadhoggie

@AustinVol

Of course i'm pulling for bama, yes my poor hogs took a beating from them and others but i'm always pulling for the sec to win the NC, why would u want to see another conference win it doesn't make sense to me, plus it really pi$$e$ off the rest of the country with the domination of the sec

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2012 at 10:07 am and is filed under Homepage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.