Monday, June 16, 2008

Gators are SEC's greatest

With the league celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, The Birmingham News created a formula to find the Southeastern Conference's all-time Greatest Athletic Program (GAP) and the Florida Gators are your winner. Read here to see how The News came up with the rankings.

SCHOOL....................GAP
1. Florida................414.50
2. Georgia................382.36
3. LSU....................321.34
4. Tennessee..............299.28
5. Kentucky...............194.79
6. Auburn.................190.13
7. Alabama................180.98
8. Arkansas...............166.65
9. South Carolina.........106.29
10. Vanderbilt............71.51
11. Ole Miss..............57.78
12. Miss. State...........46.85

What are your thoughts on the list? Anything jump out at you? How will this list look after 100 years?

I think it looks pretty good. Florida and Georgia deserve to be at the top and I don't see them slowing down any time soon. It's interesting to see how big of a gap there is between Tennessee and Kentucky and it shows how much the top four schools have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Kentucky is helped tremendously from basketball and Arkansas and South Carolina have some work to do as late arrivals to the SEC.

I'm not surprised that the Mississippi schools find themselves at the bottom, although I didn't expect both Alabama schools to be so mediocre. The fact that Alabama and Auburn are sixth and seventh respectively shows just how talented this league truly is.

As for Vanderbilt, 10th is respectable. I'd like to think that the Commodores will rise in the rankings by the 100th anniversary, but who will they pass? The only way Vanderbilt will be able to make up ground is by a) winning national championships (the best chance will be in baseball and non-revenue sports) and b) adding programs such as softball and volleyball.

Also, here are how the schools rank in the four major sports:

FOOTBALL
SCHOOL....................GAP
1. Alabama................20.71
2. Tennessee..............12.84
3. LSU....................12.22
T-4. Florida...............7.08
T-4. Georgia...............7.08
6. Ole Miss................4.83
7. Auburn..................4.03
8. Vanderbilt..............1.60
9. Arkansas................0.62
10. Kentucky ..............0.57
11. South Carolina.........0.11
12. Mississippi St........-0.69

MEN'S BASKETBALL

SCHOOL.....................GAP
1. Kentucky...............41.97
2. LSU.....................7.96
3. Florida.................6.96
4. Alabama.................5.41
5. Tennessee...............5.11
6. Arkansas................3.28
7. Vanderbilt..............3.12
8. Mississippi St..........2.97
9. Ole Miss............... 2.07
10. South Carolina.........1.13
11. Georgia................0.75
12. Auburn.................0.22

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
SCHOOL.....................GAP
1. Tennessee..............49.97
2. Georgia................13.17
3. LSU.....................8.27
4. Auburn..................6.70
5. Ole Miss................3.37
6. Vanderbilt..............3.34
7. Florida.................3.13
8. Alabama.................2.74
9. Kentucky................2.02
10. Arkansas...............1.73
11. South Carolina.........1.32
12. Mississippi St.........1.20

BASEBALL
SCHOOL.....................GAP
1. LSU....................32.04
2. Mississippi St..........9.73
3. Florida.................9.34
4. Georgia.................9.04
5. Alabama.................8.52
6. Auburn..................6.72
7. Ole Miss................5.88
8. Tennessee...............5.79
9. S. Carolina.............4.16
10. Vanderbilt.............3.26
11. Kentucky...............2.78
12. Arkansas...............2.74

Feel free to leave your thoughts below.

2 comments:

Tony Arnold said...

Ithought Miss St.'s negative number in football was funny. Their infractions did not help in the win column where other schools may have had a positive return on their questionable recruiting(maybe a school east of here).

Anonymous said...

How are we tenth in baseball? Answer me