Clemson football: How would Clemson fare in the SEC?

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not one to banter back and forth online much with opposing fans.  I like to think I’ve aged out of spending hours arguing with people I’ve never met about Clemson football or anything else for that matter.

I generally don’t even read the smack talk going back and forth.  Not that I’m above that, heck no, I occasionally throw out a shot or two at opposing teams.  I just don’t find it a very productive use of my time, not to mention the fact that in the history of the internet no one’s mind has ever been changed because of a tweet or a response to a tweet.

But when this popped up on my feed, I couldn’t resist.  No, I didn’t reply to get into the middle of the morass, but I sat down and wrote out some thoughts.

I think Josh has it right.  Notice he didn’t say “win” championships, he said compete for SEC Championships and “competing” for championships is like “value” in sports betting – it’s in the eye of the beholder.

Do I think Clemson would regularly go 12-0 or 11-1 in the SEC? Who knows, but I doubt it.  But, they also wouldn’t go 9-4 or 8-5 regularly either as some allege.

Clemson has beaten South Carolina 7 straight years, swept Texas A&M, beat Alabama twice (crushing the “best team of all time” by 4 touchdowns on the biggest stage), didn’t give up an offensive touchdown to the next “greatest team of all time” 2021 Georgia and crushed South Carolina on the road in a 30-0 shutout in a “down year”.

Yep, they also lost to some SEC teams, namely LSU and Alabama.

Clemson has beaten the best the SEC has to offer so there’s no reason to think they couldn’t compete in a top heavy league full of mediocre teams

The point is if Clemson can play with the best of the SEC,  they ain’t scared of Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi State, Florida, South Carolina and all the other mediocre teams that make up the balance of the SEC.

You know, the teams that are never mentioned when talking about how great the SEC is.

Is the SEC better than the ACC from top to bottom? Yep.  That’s not saying a lot and that doesn’t mean a team of Clemson’s caliber couldn’t compete in the SEC, just as Pate indicated.  The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

In some ways, it’s a fun exercise because no one’s “wrong” and no one’s “right”.

Well, except for Houston Burnett.

He nailed it.