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Stay hydrated with Joe’s free newsletter, SPORTS! Happy Hour. Here’s the link to sign up. This is an opinion column. _______________________ We went hard at the Big Ten’s lack of depth in Tuesday’s column, and the readers either loved it or strongly voiced their displeasure. That’s the sign of a good column. Your emails this week got me thinking. Are there any frauds in the SEC? Shouldn’t we be completely fair to our friends up north and take a look? The Big Ten has a funny way of scheduling things. Ohio State doesn’t play Oregon, USC or Indiana during the regular season. That’s great luck for those teams, right? I smell a conspiracy. But the SEC has some unbalanced schedules, too. Should SEC commissioner Greg Sankey share some of the blame for the firings at Florida, LSU, Arkansas and Auburn? And what about wonder boy Lane Kiffin? To the mailbag ... Burt writes … Speaking of fraud, how have you been? Who won the last two national championships? You take Saban out of the SEC the last 15 years and you win nearly nothing!!! Lance writes … Crazy the Big Ten won the championship last year and will repeat again this year. The SEC has some good schools, but teams are flawed. Oregon would compete with every top SEC school. I get being biased, but, man, it’s hard reading your material. The SEC does have better depth and can easily win the championship. And Big Ten has many flaws. I’m excited to see this play out. Clark in Jacksonville, Fla., writes … Let’s not forget that before the playoffs were established and the Big 4 or 5 bowls were traditional match-ups, the Big Bad Big10 Champion traveled every year to the Rose Bowl to get its ass kicked by its PAC-10 or -12 counterpart on a regular basis. Midwest Powerhouse, or Outhouse? Michael in Media, Pa., writes … You, sir, are a very entertaining , as well as an informative journalist. I appreciate your wit, your (often not so thinly veiled) sarcasm and your insights. I found your choice of photos for today’s piece to be the perfect accompaniment for the text. It kinda says it all. Thank you for what you put forth. You keep writin’ and I’ll keep readin’. Jon in Hoover writes … After moving from Big Ten country in August, I read your column with great delight. It needed to be said. Now hopefully the selection committee will do the right thing for the players and the fans and choose the 12 playoff teams based on merit and not money. Keep spreading the truth! Jamey writes … I can see somebody ain’t scared to call out the carpetbaggers who honestly think they can run all day with the big dogs if they can just finagle a ticket off the porch. I’ll add two things. We don’t care how y’all do it up north, NOW GO ON AND GIT! Back up on that porch. Tony writes … Notre Dame does not belong in the College Football Playoff – no matter how their remaining schedule goes. They have lost two games. They have played only one team currently highly ranked, and they lost it. Their strength of schedule ranks 23rd. Their remaining strength of schedule ranks 23rd. They won’t join a conference, so they don’t risk losing to a top-ranked conference team in a championship game. But they will probably get in because they are NOTRE DAME! ANSWER: Notre Dame’s strength of schedule is listed as 30th in the country, according to ESPN’s ranking system. Indiana is all the way down at 33. That’s an easy day against the scout team in the SEC. That might be a slight over exaggeration, but maybe so is the hype about Hoosiers football. I’m not saying Indiana isn’t worthy of the College Football Playoff, but I still have some doubts. For example, there’s no way I’m going to be able to vote Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza over Alabama’s Ty Simpson or Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia for the Heisman based on Indiana’s current body of work. Mendoza is having a great season, and some of his passes have been remarkable. How would he perform week in and week out against defensive lines in the SEC, though? Hmm, I have my doubts. To be fair to Mendoza, I’ll wait to cast my ballot after watching him against Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game. If Mendoza shreds the Buckeyes, then I’ll happily put him on my ballot. Mendoza was 21 of 30 passing for 215 yards to go along with a touchdown and an interception in Indiana’s 30-20 victory at Oregon. He was 19 of 30 for 218 yards with a touchdown and an interception in the 27-24 win at Penn State. I’m sensing a pattern — consistently good against decent teams, but not great. Penn State, of course, has lost six games in a row, so I’m probably being generous. Now let’s look at the strength of schedules for teams in the SEC. Every team in the SEC has a tougher strength of schedule than Indiana. Here are the strength of schedules for every team: Florida (1), LSU (3), South Carolina (4), Auburn (5), Alabama (6), Arkansas (7), Kentucky (8), Georgia (11), Texas (13), Mississippi State (14), Texas A&M (15), Oklahoma (16), Tennessee (18), Vanderbilt (21), Missouri (26) and Ole Miss (32). Three things stand out. First, four of the top six SEC teams in strength of schedule have all fired their coaches. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey might not be getting a holiday gift card to Bed, Bath and Beyond from fired coaches Billy Napier (Florida), Brian Kelly (LSU), Hugh Freeze (Auburn) and Sam Pittman (Arkansas). Five of the six teams in the SEC with the toughest schedules are all fighting for the bottom of the SEC standings. The lone exception is Alabama, which is undefeated in league play at 6-0, but still has grueling tests against Oklahoma and at Jordan-Hare Stadium against rival Auburn. The reason for Alabama’s success in close games has been the quarterback play of Simpson, who has thrown 21 touchdown passes to just one interception. If Alabama goes undefeated in the SEC, then the Heisman goes to Simpson. What’s really curious about the strength of schedule rankings is that Ole Miss is last in the league at 32. How did Ole Miss land such an easy schedule and, if we’re being completely fair to Indiana, shouldn’t we be critical of the Rebels’ résumé? LSU and Florida are racing to hire Lane Kiffin, but maybe he’s driving a clunker with a nice paint job. Ole Miss has wins against four of the worst teams in the SEC but did knock off Oklahoma in Norman. That win against OU was Kiffin’s first at Ole Miss against a ranked SEC opponent on the road. Ole Miss ends the season with Florida and Mississippi State. Is Kiffin a fraud? Is Ole Miss the Oregon of the Southland? Buyer beware. If Ole Miss loses either one of those games, then the Rebel Land Shark Black Bears will be out of the playoff hunt. As a reporter, I would love to see Kiffin at Auburn. He would be fun to cover. But maybe Auburn can do better. Personally, I don’t think Kiffin is the best fit for the Tigers. It’s going to take someone made of tougher stuff. And does anyone outside of Tuscaloosa really want to see Pete Golding coaching Auburn’s defense? MAILBAG SOUND OFF Got a question for Joe? Want to get something off your chest? Send Joe an email about what’s on your mind. Let your voice be heard. Ask him anything for the reader mailbag.
