Read the arguments from Sports Geek and Bleacher Fan about which conference had the best bowl season in 2009.
It saddens me to write this argument today because it means that college football is over. My Saturdays will have a sense of emptiness, as it always takes me awhile to adjust. But, before we officially close the book on the season, The Sports Debates is taking a look back at the bowl season to decide which conference had the best bowl season. Sports Geek will fight for the little guy with the feel good story of the Mountain West Conference while Bleacher Fan will stick to his roots and arguing that the Big Ten had the best bowl season. I am also sticking to my roots and arguing that the MIGHTY SEC had the best bowl season, once again.
Now, on paper, the SEC’s bowl record of 6-4 pales in comparison to that of, say, the Mountain West (4-1). I will grant that the SEC could have had the ugliest loss that I saw all bowl season with South Carolina’s dreadful performance against UConn. But the conference also had some impressive.
To me, the most impressive win was from the Florida Gators. The Gators, with all of the controversy surrounding head coach Urban Meyer, were able to put all of that aside for one night. They absolutely destroyed the previously unbeaten Cincinnati Bearcats, though it is obvious that the Bearcats had distractions with the absence of Brian Kelly. The difference is the Gators were able to use their distraction as a rallying point. Many fans are Tim Tebow lovers and many are Tim Tebow haters. I fall somewhere in between. But his performance in the Sugar Bowl was nothing short of sensational. He was 31-35 for a Sugar Bowl record 482 yards. Time will tell how far Tebow advances at the next level, but there is one thing that cannot be argued: Tebow has left an everlasting mark on college football.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the national champion Alabama Crimson Tide. There has been much debate in the past few days regarding the national champions. Behind the scenes here at TSD headquarters we have loudly discussed whether or not Alabama would have won if Colt McCoy had not gotten hurt. But that’s water under the bridge now. The Tide joined the Gators in defeating a previously undefeated team. Their victory also makes it four consecutive years that the national champion has come out of the SEC, following Florida, LSU, and again Florida.
In addition to these two teams, Georgia and Ole Miss posted impressive wins over Big XII teams, while Auburn and Arkansas were able to win their games in overtime.
Year in and year out, the SEC sits at the top of the college football conference. The conference takes the best shot of its competitors and has not yet been supplanted as the nation’s best conference. Having successful bowl seasons like this one in 2009 – where it boasted two dominant teams at the top – makes
the SEC second to none!
