I have to admit. I told people yesterday (but did not blog it) that a healthy Teddy Bridgewater gave Louisville a chance to be competitive against the Florida Gators however, I did not see the Cardinals, under any circumstance, dominating Florida as they did. It's tempting to write this one off to Florida being "flat" as often happens in bowl games when teams play what is considered to be a lesser opponent or they were aiming higher and didn't make it. The problem with that analysis is that Florida was genuinely fired up for this game. At least, their defense was. On several occasions they laid the wood to Louisville and they played fast and with conviction.
What happened then is that the Cardinals were just better than the Gators, which raises some questions about the quality of play in the SEC.
This, of course, has aTm fans and Tim Brando very angry right now. Angry enough that they're either calling bowls 'meaningless' or going back to old habits of mocking University of Houston fans about their pathetic play this year. Of course, there's always going to be the UT-Austin mocking and that's fine, but picking on Houston? That's like the varsity beating up on the Jr. varsity and then doing a victory dance in the lunch-room.
We all know that CBS College Football coverage is bought and paid for by the Southeastern Conference. If this surprises you then you just haven't been paying attention. Right now, in an unfortunate world where ESPN dominates college football coverage, CBS is a one-conference company and that conference is the SEC. How else do you explain Brando & Co. immediately coming out after the Alabama loss to aTm and arguing forcefully that 'Bama was not dead? They did this despite the fact that no-one was seriously saying they were.
After Alabama lost pretty much everyone in the country understood that the likelihood of two teams ending the season undefeated was remote and that, being viewed as the best 1-loss team, 'Bama was likely to back into the B(C)S Championship game provided they took care of business. It's because of silliness like this that people pile on to Brando et al with "SEC hate" which is really "bad punditry on CBS" hate viewed as directed toward the conference because that's all CBS does.
The problem that CBS, and the SEC, now have is this: If losses by then 10-2 LSU to then 10-2 Clemson and then 10-2 Louisville to then 11-1 Florida don't mean that the SEC is losing it's grip as the nation's premier conference due to them being "meaningless bowl games" then there's no way you can argue that a win by then 10-2 South Carolina over then 8-4 Michigan proves the reverse.
