Danny Kanell: SEC isn’t as ahead as we think they are

The SEC had one of its worst first weeks in recent memory on Saturday, with the 13 of its teams that played going a combined 7-6.

Those seven wins are deceiving however, with Tennessee requiring overtime to drop a relatively weak Appalachian State and Arkansas needing a late rally to come back and take down Louisiana Tech.

Alabama turned in a dominant performance, crushing USC by a scoreline of 52-6 – it wasn’t enough to distract college football’s eye from the rest of the SEC’s day.

Mississippi State, 28-point favorites, lost to South Alabama in a shocker while LSU couldn’t survive quarterback Brandon Harris’ awful outing, losing to an inspired Wisconsin team at historic Lambeau Field.

Danny Kanell, ESPN analyst and co-host of the Russillo & Kanell Show, says this isn’t out of the ordinary, however.

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Monday, Kanell outlined his case for the SEC being mortal, saying that outside of the oft-dominant Alabama, the rest of the SEC’s teams aren’t much different from the rest of the nation’s top teams.

“If you look at it over the last four or five years you could say ‘Look at all the different championships.’ Auburn, the Cam Newton year was sort of a fluke for Auburn. They got hot and captured that lightning in a bottle with Cam Newton. Florida, with Tim Tebow, who was carrying that torch, was another one that was kind of an incredible player. But they’re not that much different than every other conference. They really aren’t.”

Kanell didn’t take it all the way; he admitted the SEC was still the best conference in college football, just not that much better than its competition.

He went on to add that one of the reasons he brought up the opposing viewpoint was to oppose the status-quo line of thinking leading everyone to blindly believe the SEC was untouchable.

There’s always a conversation that the SEC is head and shoulders above everybody else. And the more people around here that say it, the more you all kind of go into this group think and everyone goes in line with it. All I’ve wanted to do is challenge that line of thinking and say ‘Hey, they’re not unbeatable.’ And I think we saw that this weekend.

It’s important to keep in mind that it’s only been one week of college football. Kanell, despite his stance being that the SEC isn’t as head-and-shoulders above everyone else as we thought there, did his fair share of laughing at comments suggesting the SEC wasn’t still the best conference in college football – he was quick to back the conference and keep bringing up the context of it only being the first week.

The SEC’s only team that hasn’t kicked off yet is No. 11 Ole Miss, who’ll be taking on a No. 4 ranked Florida State at 8 p.m. on ESPN.

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