The SEC Football Superiority Complex is Getting Old for College Football Fans

One of the most fascinating things about college football to me is the sense of pride people from all different regions feel from watching their teams succeed. College football teams don't just represent a city like some pro teams do, they represent entire states and alumni fan bases across the country.

The small-town values that shine through in college football and the many success stories we see of players that hail from these obscure areas add a personal touch to the game that the NFL doesn't quite provide.

College football also serves as a source of bragging rights for people from these different regions, as fans from Florida up to Michigan and Wisconsin all the way across to California argue over which region plays better football. It's about a clash of different styles of play and cultures and that's part of what makes it so fun.

But lately, that whole dynamic has been thrown out of whack by the media, who once again has taken it upon themselves to make up fans' minds for them and to pawn their opinions off as fact.

The 2007 campaign seems to revolve around the fact that the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is the best conference in America, and no one can or should even bother to argue that fact. If you listen enough to ESPN and especially SEC flagship station CBS, you just might begin to think that the SEC is in actuality a lost conference from the NFL and that the SEC champion ought to deserve an automatic berth to the BCS championship game.

So, just what contributed to this suddenly widespread opinion on the SEC? Why do analysts seemingly praise this conference every chance they get while doing nothing but bashing many other top conferences like the Big 12 and Big 10?

Part of the reason is the fact that SEC fans take their football more seriously than any other region. This is because SEC areas don't have as many pro teams as other regions and they regard college football as the top sport by far (unless you count NASCAR, which is right up there). SEC fans are numerous and vocal and whenever someone says anything negative about the conference, you can be sure that person will receive a negative e-mail or voicemail in a flash.