Why do some people poke fun at the 17-4 narrative?
Since the CBJ era began we have played 53 games. 32 SEC games and 21 OOC games. We've won 32 games and lost 21 games. Cool, huh?
85.7% (18) of our losses have been in SEC games and only 14.3% (3) of our losses have been in OOC games.
We hate to lose more than we like to win. I think that's true of all the historical powers in the SEC. So while CBJ pushes a narrative that focuses on the total wins, many of us get hung up more on the losses and in particular the losses in our conference. jmo.
There are some who focus on wins and losses without making a distinction but that's not who we are. We are an SEC power historically and while we are now representing the SEC extremely well in OOC competition we have not yet established that we have returned to being a competitive power within the conference. We're close; we just need to get over the hump and that appears to mean at least getting the division crown.
So out of that 17-4 stretch 12 of those games were SEC games and we went 8-4 (The 17-4 stretch starts after the 2015 loss to Alabama). In that stretch we went 9-0 in OOC games.
Many of us have actually watched enough football in our day to assess our prospects within the conference based on how well we perform in OOC games. We may not always be right but we do the same thing when looking at our conference competition. While some fans want to shut down discussion of concerns about our defense those same fans want to pump up criticism of for exampe the Missouri defense or the Florida offense. That's okay. I understand. It is what it is.
There is no question we have improved tremendously as a football program and as a football team from where we were when CBJ arrived. We need to continue winning the OOC games but obviously for us to improve from where we are we will have to cut down on the losses in SEC play. That is the real challenge and it's not an easy challenge by any stretch. jmo.
Everybody is talking 8-4ish type of season this year (Catbone, I think is 7-5), so who are the 4 SEC teams we lose to in 2017? I think we beat FL, GA, SC, KY, MO, and VD. I'm uncertain about LSU & Bama and may be overly optimistic about GA but I think SC is overrated and am not overly impressed with anyone else.
This is the narrative I think will work. After Saturday, we will be 9-4 in our last 13 SEC games, a couple weeks later we will be 10-4, and then two weeks after that we will be 11-4. Bama comes up after that so either we beat them or just reset the counter. I agree with Butch I don't want to see the count going up on the losses side either.
