Wiedmer: What shall we do if Buckeyes win, then repeat?

Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon (25) is on his way to a 53-yard touchdown during the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1, 2015, in Tampa, Fla.
Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon (25) is on his way to a 53-yard touchdown during the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1, 2015, in Tampa, Fla.

Believe it or not, should you choose to Google "how to cook crow," more than a few recipes will appear. You can apparently make a crow soup with sweet cream and mushrooms. You can bake a crow pot pie. There also are all manner of roasted crow offerings, certainly enough for every football team from the Southeastern Conference's Western Division that lost a bowl game to have its own signature dish.

And that's a good thing because the SEC West is going to be expected to eat a good amount of the brutish, black bird between now and the start of the 2015 season, given its 2-5 record in postseason play over the past week.

It was one thing for No. 1 Alabama to lose to underrated Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl. Throw out that 59-0 thrashing of Texas A&M and this Bama bunch almost never looked nearly as dominating as the three Nick Saban-coached outfits that won it all for the Crimson Tide in 2009, 2011 and 2012.

Nor was the pummeling Ole Miss suffered against TCU in the Peach Bowl completely without explanation. It seems clear today that TCU -- not 2013 national champ Florida State -- should have been the fourth team chosen for the playoff following the Horned Frogs' 42-3 victory over the Rebels and the Seminoles' 59-20 loss to Oregon in the Rose Bowl.

But that doesn't explain Auburn's uneven performance against Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl. Or LSU's late fizzle against Notre Dame in the Music City Bowl. Or Mississippi State's struggles against Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl, which may have been the best example of the league's mediocrity, since Atlantic Coast Conference member Tech had won earlier at Georgia.

In fact, the much-maligned SEC East should probably sue its West brethren for non-support after its 5-0 run through bowl season allowed the league to finish 7-5 overall.

So as our David Paschall points out this morning in his SEC wrap, all those opposing fans mocking the conference with derisive chants of "S-E-C! S-E-C!" have legitimate reasons for their cruel fun. To have no teams in the national championship game for the first time in nine years, to watch your seven ranked schools go 2-5 in the postseason, to do all of this in the first months of the in-your-face SEC Network, is to invite much heckling.

But in some respects, the SEC East also showed what makes the league so special. So deep. So tough from top to bottom.

The fact that Florida -- a team with an interim head coach -- played with such passion against East Carolina in the Birmingham Bowl on Saturday is a sign of the SEC's unusual pride. So were the 45,000 or so Tennessee fans who took over Jacksonville for the Vols' 45-28 Taxslayer Bowl win over Iowa. And Georgia's Bulldogs, who put aside the massive disappointments of late-season losses to Georgia Tech and Florida to embarrass Louisville in Charlotte's Belk Bowl.

And win or lose, it's nice to report that no SEC team lacked the sportsmanship of Florida State. Roughly 70 percent of the Seminoles failed to shake the hands of Oregon players after their semifinal loss. Thankfully, oft-criticized FSU quarterback Jameis Winston was not among those classless 'Noles.

Perhaps that's also why Paschall quoted TCU coach Gary Patterson as largely defending the SEC's unity.

"You've got to be one family," Patterson said. "The thing about the SEC is how strong they are about being as one, and I think that's one thing the Big 12 has to be able to do."

Yet even that may be a simplistic view of the SEC's parochialism. This is the South, after all, a region that has somewhat been at odds with the rest of the nation since before the Civil War. From what we eat, to what we think, to the votes we cast, we've been a defiant, contrarian lot for more than 150 years.

Not that we're always right. Or that our priorities are in order, which they clearly aren't when a recent study ranking the 10 dumbest states in America based on percentage of residents with bachelor's degrees and median household income listed six SEC states: Tennessee (10), Alabama (7), Louisiana (5), Kentucky (4), Mississippi (3) and Arkansas (2).

There's even an underlying uneasiness and queasiness that so much of the South's initial bonding could be traced to the repugnancy of racism.

But that's also as wrongly simplistic as to say we care only about college football. We just don't seem to care as much as others think we should for what they want us to care about. We'd rather wistfully recall the times of Bear Bryant and Shug Jordan and Archie Manning and General Neyland and a Halloween miracle punt return by Billy Cannon.

Television's whims didn't dictate our tailgates back then. The music came from the school band instead of a boom box. And while it may be hard for Millennials to understand, preppy attire didn't begin with Vineyard Vines. It's been the game-day fashion statement of choice on the campuses of Alabama, Ole Miss and former SEC member Sewanee for more than 50 years.

And all of this -- the South's love of the past, the SEC's outrageous football success until this past week, our probable belief that, rightly or wrongly, our Red State region's most likely relevancy in an increasingly Blue State nation may be our food and our football -- assuredly has fueled the rising ferocity of "S-E-C! S-E-C!" below the Mason-Dixon line in recent years.

Nevertheless, when next season begins, Ohio State will almost certainly be No. 1, with TCU close behind.

So with the SEC certain of not even finishing SECond best this year, it might be best for all of us to develop our own Southern Fried Crow recipe, complete with a side of grits. Especially if those insufferable OSU Buckeyes are gunning for a repeat title after next Monday's national championship game against Oregon.

At that point, with OSU viewed as the new Alabama, we'd really have no choice but to paraphrase the desperation of our great literary figure Scarlett O'Hara, screaming in unison, "Where can we go? What can we do?"

We just shouldn't expect the rest of college football to give a darn.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

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