By Matt Thacker

Editor’s note: Andrew Krumme’s column will return in the Nov. 7 issue of The Cardinal.

The SEC reigns as king of the college football world. That’s what fans have heard since at least September. The belief has become so ingrained in our heads by media and pollsters that it would be impossible for any rational football fan to think otherwise. Just one thing: it’s a complete lie and a potentially costly one for the Big East champion.

Three Big East teams, Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia, are undefeated with each playing every other Big East team once. A good possibility exists that one of those three will finish the season without a loss.

After the USC loss on Saturday, an undefeated Big East champion appears to have an open door to the title game. Thanks to the Bowl Championship Series formula, it may not turn out that way. Two one-loss SEC teams, Florida and Auburn, rank ahead of Louisville in the BCS standings, which determines who will play in the national championship game.

Media analysts and coaches have debated whether a one-loss SEC champion (four in the conference have one loss so far) should get the nod over an undefeated Big East team, obviously implying the SEC’s vast superiority over the Big East.

Tommy Tuberville, coach of Auburn, has been an outspoken critic of the BCS since 2004 when his team went undefeated but finished third in the BCS standings behind two other undefeated teams.

“After what we went through a couple of years ago, I’d hate to think that anybody would be left out of playing for a national championship undefeated, but it’s got to be a legitimate undefeated,” Tuberville reportedly told the Denver Post in an obvious jab aimed at West Virginia and Louisville.

Tuberville and many others would have you believe the SEC has so many great teams that none of them could make it through such a grueling schedule undefeated. In reality, most of those supposedly great teams are overrated.

Since it would be illogical to determine the strength of a conference based on how teams perform against intra-conference foes (a concept many analysts don’t seem to grasp), let’s examine the SEC’s non-conference games.

The supposed SEC powerhouses, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Auburn and LSU, are a combined 19-1 in non-conference games. Sounds impressive, right? Not exactly. Only four of those opponents play in a BCS conference. Of the 15 teams from non-BCS conferences, two are Division 1-AA, and only Louisiana Lafayette (4-3) and Southern Miss (4-4) have winning records.

The SEC does have two solid wins. Tennessee dominated California 35-18 in their season opener, and Auburn beat Washington State 40-14. The other two games were not so impressive. Georgia narrowly escaped with a one-point win over Colorado (1-8), and Arkansas was destroyed at home by USC (50-14).

The bottom half of the conference is 12-6 against non-conference opponents, with the only win against a BCS-conference team coming from Alabama in a 30-14 victory over winless Duke.

Plus, SEC teams enjoy major home field advantage. None of the six powerhouses have gone on the road outside of conference play. Florida will travel to 1-AA Western Carolina next month, but that hardly counts as a test.

So how did the experts decide that the SEC was so great? It certainly could not be last year’s bowl games in which the SEC went 3-3, including West Virginia’s 38-35 shocker over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. It certainly could not be the level of talent considering ESPN’s list of top Heisman trophy candidates includes three Big East players and just one SEC player.

The SEC began the season with three teams in the top 10 because voters perceived they had great talent returning. By week six, they had five in the top 13 because other teams started picking up losses, while the SEC teams piled up victories playing fluff schedules.

Just because all of the SEC teams are beating each other up doesn’t mean they are all great, just that they are all about equal.

How does the Big East compare? Louisville has beaten three BCS-conference teams by a combined score of 114-41, and West Virginia has outscored two BCS-conference teams 87-38. Rutgers and Pittsburgh are a combined 3-1 in the same category.

Tuberville was correct in saying that a ìlegitimate undefeatedî should play in the national championship game, and an undefeated Big East champion more than qualifies, especially in comparison to the overrated SEC.

Matt Thacker is a senior majoring in English. Email him at sports@louisvillecardinal.com.