Jackson Free Press

Maybe it is the college football playoff starting in 2014, or maybe it is because the Southeastern Conference raided the Big-12 to add Missouri and Texas A&M. Whatever the reason, football coaches in the Big-12 are taking shots at the SEC.

Bob Stoops of Oklahoma pointed out that he thinks the Big-12 is a better conference from top to bottom than the SEC. He stated that the conference that has won the last seven national championships is more propaganda than substance.

Stoops pointed out that nine of the 10 teams in the Big-12 reached a bowl game. The SEC is a 14-team conference and nine of those teams reached a bowl game last season.

The wheels fell off for some of the bottom teams in the SEC. Arkansas' season got derailed before it began by the head coach's motorcycle accident, Missouri dealt with injuries and fallout from ill-timed smack talk, and Auburn and Tennessee were saddled with a terrible offense (Auburn) and a terrible defense (Tennessee).

Kentucky cares more about basketball than football anyway. Pointing out the Wildcats are bad in football is taking aim at an easy target.

Sure the Big-12 plays a nine game conference schedule and the SEC plays an eight game conference schedule. The SEC only saw one team (Ole Miss) reach a bowl game with a losing conference record, but the Big-12 had five teams that reached a bowl with a losing record.

Stoops can't claim that the Big-12 plays a tougher non-conference schedule with only Texas, Iowa State and Oklahoma State hitting the road to play out-of-conference games against one of the big-six conferences.

The Big-12 schedules just as many cupcakes, but people complain about the SEC scheduling far more. It helps bring bowl eligibility in reach when most of your teams are playing three gimme games--already halfway to the necessary six wins to reach the postseason.

While the SEC went 6-3 in bowl games last season, the Big-12 went 4-5 in bowl games.

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and LSU finished with a conference record equal or better than Texas A&M. Stoops and Oklahoma didn't even face one of the top-two teams in the SEC and the team got run off the field against A&M.

Stoops has a 4-3 record against the SEC in regular season games and bowl games (counting A&M last season as an SEC team in the Cotton Bowl). He hasn't beaten an SEC team since besting Alabama in 2003--five years before Nick Saban became head coach in 2007.

The top of the SEC is really good, which means the bottom is going to look worse. Last season the SEC had six teams reach double-digits in wins, whereas only Oklahoma and Kansas State reached the same feat in the Big-12.

Eight teams in the SEC won eight or more games and, in the Big-12, only six won eight or more.

Sounds like Stoops is searching for something to brag about while the SEC wins national championships--or to avoid the thought that Oklahoma hasn't played for a title since losing to Florida in 2008.