You wont let go, will you? I’m scared.

Up until the end of the Arkansas/Auburn game this weekend, everyone’s favorite cry-baby, Tommy Potatoville, was setting up the BCS and the NCAA Football Covering Media of the World for an outright OMG!-WE’RE-SO-SCREWED-LOOK-AT-THIS-SCHEDULE-PLAYING-IN-THE-SEC-IS-WEALLY-HAWD campaign.

But then the unthinkable happened, and Auburn’s hopes for any semblance of a legitimate argument for nomination into the BCS championship game were dashed.

Still, while the media and the rest of the world may have dropped the poor-Awbuwn-woozy-woozy-woo story lines, one thing keeps ringing in the ears of all college football fans as it’s screamed over and over again by the Lee Corsos and other poo-throwers of the world: THE SEC IS REALLY HARD TO PLAY IN!

But is it?

The contention is that the SEC is an impossibly difficult conference because so many of the teams within the conference are so damned good. But how do you make that judgement? How can you tell that they’re so damned good? Because they all look so fast on TV? Because they seem to consistenly play out 10-7 barn burners during inter-conference play? Because so many of their stadiums are “electric” on gameday? Because Kirk Herbstreit gets a big grin on his face any time Gameday gets to be on location at an SEC school?

Probably not.

The only real way to judge one conference against another, or, more importantly in this dog-eat-dog, 14-million-dollar-BCS-bowl-payment-world, to determine that one team is better than another, is to look at teams’ relative performance against similar competition. So let’s look at who the SEC teams are playing outside of their little family…

• September 2
• Michigan 27, Vanderbilt 7
• Georgia 48, Western Kentucky 12
• Tennessee 35, #9 California 18
• Florida 34, Southern Miss 7
• Alabama 25, Hawaii 17
• Auburn 40, Washington State 14
• LSU 45, Louisiana-Lafayette 3
• USC 50, Arkansas 14
• September 3
• Mississippi 28, Memphis 25
• Louisville 59, Kentucky 28
• September 9
• Missouri 34, Mississippi 7
• Florida 42, UCF 0
• Kentucky 41, Texas State 7
• LSU 45, Arizona 3
• Tennessee 31, Air Force 30
• Arkansas 20, Utah State 0
• September 16
• Georgia 34, UAB 0
• Tulane 32, Mississippi State 29
• South Carolina 27, Wofford 20
• Alabama 41, Louisiana-Monroe 7
• September 23
• Georgia 14, Colorado 13
• Auburn 38, Buffalo 7
• Tennessee 33, Marshall 7
• Wake Forest 27, Mississippi 3
• Mississippi State 16, UAB 10
• Vanderbilt 38, Tennessee State 9
• South Carolina 45, Florida Atlantic 6
• LSU 49, Tulane 7
• September 30
• Tennessee 41, Memphis 7
• Kentucky 45, Central Michigan 36
• Vanderbilt 43, Temple 14
• October 7
• West Virginia 42, Mississippi State 14
• Alabama 30, Duke 14

Now, in later editions of Conference, Schmonference, we’ll take a look at the non-SEC teams and how other teams from other conferences fared against the same or like competition. However, even without such analysis, it’s pretty easy to see that, overall, the non-Conference schedule of the SEC has a certain Stay Puft consistency. Sure, it looks menacing, but it’s really just melty.

And frankly, against some of the rather doughy nonCons, the SEC didn’t exactly looke like lions amongst a pen of sheep. And hell, against quality nonCons, with huge winning traditions like Air Force, Wake Forest, and Wofford, the SEC didn’t look real hot whilst barely slipping by for wins.

Don’t even get me started about the SEC’s performance against “top” competition like Michigan, West Virginia, or USC. Real quick: If USC is way better than Arkansas, and Arkansas is way better than Auburn, and Auburn… You know what? Forget it. You see where I’m going.

And so, I’ll state…

• Conference, Schmonference Theorem #1: Conference Affiliation Doesn’t Make a Team Good.
• Conference, Schmonference Theorem #2: Conference Teams That Tear Eachother Apart In Conference Play Might Belong To An Excellent Conference, But They’re Just As Likely To Belong To A Mediocre Conference.

We’ll investigate further in later editions of Conference, Schmonference…

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