ESPN's Ryan Clark shared one of the weirdest reactions to the Miami Hurricanes defeating the Ole Miss Rebels and punching their ticket to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game from anyone in the media on Friday, claiming that "The U" is the "most traditionally SEC football team in all the country."
Clark called out the Florida Gators, LSU Tigers, Auburn Tigers, Alabama Crimson Tide, and Georgia Bulldogs as he lauded Miami's ability to dominate Ole Miss in the trenches during their 31-27 Fiesta Bowl win.
“I know you’re going to hate this,” Clark told Cam Newton and Stephen A. Smith, per Awful Announcing. “The Miami Hurricanes are the most traditionally ‘SEC football team’ in all the country. It ain’t Florida, it ain’t LSU, it ain’t Auburn, it ain’t Alabama, it ain’t Georgia. This is the first time Ole Miss this season has faced a team that plays like we historically believe SEC teams play.
“The physicality was out the door,” the ESPN analyst added. “3rd and 4th down, 3rd and 2, 4th and 2, what do they do? They turn around and hand the football off to Mark Fletcher, they hand the football off to CharMar Brown. They run downhill and physically dominate Ole Miss. Defensively, they were the faster team, they were the more athletic team, they were the more athletic team. This game is actually way closer on the scoreboard than it was in real life. They dropped four picks. Four of them! Carson Beck throws an interception on a tipped ball in the red zone. This team absolutely dominated from a physicality standpoint, from an athleticism standpoint.”
The SEC downfall narrative in full force
Clark is not the first, nor will he be the last, to prognosticate the end of the "It Just Means More" conference and the rise of others. He was just the most dramatic, though, in claiming that one Canes run to the CFP title game makes them more SEC than teams that have won it all more recently than Miami.
Well, scratch that. Colin Cowherd was the most dramatic, making the asinine comparison of the SEC to the Mountain West. Either way, though, there is a coordinated effort to undermine the SEC.
Is it a hedge from media members, knowing the biggest spending in the sport no longer revolves around the southeast, but rather in the state of Texas and across Big Ten country in the Midwest and West Coast? That'd be one logical explanation.
Either way, the SEC not being included in the CFP title game for the third straight year is having some slamming the panic button.
The sky isn't falling on the SEC. Not yet, anyway.