We are also second in wins and National Championships in the SEC but who's counting.
Definitely agree there are good arguments in our favor. Was just pointing out it's not an open/shut case.
For example, UGA leads us in the head to head match up, has more 10 win seasons, more bowl wins, and is within a reasonable range of our all time SEC championships, consensus national titles, and bowl game appearances. One measure of relevance is number of years with at least a week ranked in the top 25. Georgia has only had four or so seasons since the 1960s where they didn't spend at least a week in the top 25. We've had 6 of those in the last 7 years, I believe. Others in the SEC have faired better than us in that measure in recent decades.
Florida clearly has dominated for at least the last 30 years, and has more consensus national titles. And on and on.
Anyway. The whole debate put into perspective for me how far we've fallen, especially the last 6 or 7 years. The guys I debated weren't even SEC fans. They thought it was laughable I was even making the arguments in favor of Tennessee.
I still absolutely think we belong in the upper echelon of the SEC right alongside Bama, Florida, UGA, LSU and Auburn. But we need to win a lot of ball games these next few years to truly distinguish ourselves again.
