Everyone's played their (paltry?) 8 conference games, so what do we have?
LSU, the top team in the conference, gave up 204 points in SEC games. That's good enough for 6th-best defense in the East - worse than Missouri's - who went 3-5 in-conference.
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By record:
8-0 LSU
7-1 Georgia
6-2 Florida, Alabama
5-3 Auburn, Tennessee
4-4 Texas A&M
3-5 Kentucky, Missouri, Carolina, Miss St
2-6 Ole Miss
1-7 Vanderbilt
0-8 Arkansas
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Strength of Schedule (SEC games only, opponents' record against everyone else):
33-23 Florida, Auburn
30-26 Vanderbilt, Texas A&M
29-27 Georgia, Tennessee, Carolina
28-28 Alabama, Miss St
27-29 LSU
26-30 Arkansas
24-32 Ole Miss
23-33 Kentucky
22-34 Missouri
So this is where we can see some context. Florida and Alabama both went 6-2, but Florida did it against a tougher schedule. We all knew Auburn and A&M had tough schedules, but no worse than Florida and Vanderbilt.
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This is the problem with unbalanced scheduling, though. Auburn had to play the top 4 teams (by record) in the conference this year. So before the first ball was snapped, it was highly unlikely they were going to have a great season. And how is any coach going to get Vanderbilt to a bowl when they're not only facing in-division foes like Florida and Georgia, but they're served with playing LSU as well?
On a surprising note, Tennessee seems to have earned its 5-3 conference mark, facing a tougher-than-average schedule. Kentucky was unable to build on its strong year last year, despite a relatively weak schedule. That is revealing. This may also be why Missouri felt right to fire its HC, not reaching .500 despite the easiest schedule in the conference.
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Now to mesh. If we combine the rankings of record and SOS, and assign points like the polls do, here's what we're left with:
26 Florida
24 Auburn
23 Georgia
20 Tennessee, Texas A&M
19 LSU, Alabama
17 Carolina
14 Miss St, Vanderbilt
9 Kentucky
8 Missouri
6 Ole Miss
5 Arkansas
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I hope this is a useful exercise in showing the limits of simply using a team's record. Now yes, this method holds SOS the equal of W/L record, but I promise you if we did the same exercise with point differential, the results would be more in line with the general consensus.
Florida was not the best team in the conference this year. Tennessee wasn't better than LSU or Alabama. But when we just use wins and losses and take into account the wildly imbalanced schedules these teams (even in the same division) face, you see silly outcomes.
