Mythbusters: SEC style

There is a common myth being perpetuated in college football this year, and over the last few years for that matter. The myth is so pervasive and widely accepted that it’s rarely challenged and often used as the basis of many “team a” vs. “team b” arguments. In fact, this myth is usually used as a prepositional phrase to start an argumentative sentence, as if talking about the sky being blue or water being wet or Alec being the most talented Baldwin.

The myth states that there is a wide talent and speed gap between the SEC and the rest of college football. I’ve stated it here before that I agree with the notion that the SEC has the highest number of good (not great) teams of any conference this year. But a blanket talent and speed advantage- that’s another thing altogether. Rather than use single game outcomes to test the myth, I decided to approach it more analytically. If there is such a talent and speed gap in the SEC, surely that would translate into the NFL. So that’s where I looked and here’s what I found.

If you guessed that the SEC has more players on active NFL rosters, you’d be correct. But do the numbers indicate a gross advantage in either talent or speed?

Not at all.

14.1% of NFL players did their college time in the SEC. Not far behind the SEC is the ACC with 13.5% of NFL players. Third is the Big Ten with 12.9% followed by the Pac-10 at 10.8% and the Big 12 at 10%. To sum it up:

14.1% SEC
13.5% ACC
12.9% Big Ten
10.8% Pac-10
10% Big XII

If you remove the older players in the league and only look at players with 0-5 years of experience, that should show evidence of SEC speed translating into the NFL, right? Wrong.

13.7% SEC
13.5% ACC
12.6% Big Ten
10.3% Pac-10
9.7% Big XII

To put the above numbers in perspective, the .2% difference between the SEC and the ACC equals roughly 3 players total. Put another way, only three teams in the league would have one additional player of SEC heritage, all others would have equal numbers of SEC and ACC-folk. You have to work your way down to the Pac-10 before there is on average one more SEC player per NFL team vs. the Pac-10. So if there really is a significant difference in speed and talent in the SEC, it isn’t translating into the NFL. At least not in the numbers.

So the next time you hear someone throw around the SEC being filled with superior talent and speed, don’t let the comment go unchallenged. Because it just isn’t true.

You’re welcome.