I think were SEC teams gain their “speed” advantage is the speed of their defensive linemen. See Florida vs OSU and Florida vs OU.

Another advantage I think SEC teams have over most other teams, is the depth of their speed. The starting 22 are all pretty much equal, talent-wise (of course you have your Percy Harvins, Julio Joneses, Beanie Wellses, Michael Crabtrees), but I think the 2nd team players (especially defensively) are better/faster in the SEC.

This is all just observational. At the very least, most SEC defenses at least play faster than their opponents, even if on a track they wouldn’t be.

The comparison shows how a slower guy might make up the difference by running smarter, but what if the faster guy makes proper decisions and takes the right angles on the field as well?

Or, as some are mentioning, what if a whole team of relatively fast guys take the right angles? He mentions all that as part of coaching; then perhaps the SEC is justified in paying their coaches more money after all.

But he was debunking the wrong myth. I have always known the term “SEC speed” to refer to the defensive side of the ball, and never once have I heard an argument that the SEC produces faster players at the skill positions.

He is questioning whether the SEC is the best conference as we hear every year, saying:

Year after year you hear and read all about how the SEC is the greatest college football conference ever. It has the best competition. It has the best fans. It has the best top to bottom teams. It has the best teams in the nation. The list of phrases and praise goes on and on.

This is essentially his way of challenging the conventional wisdom that the SEC is the best conference. In order to prove this point, however, he uses the conventional wisdom that the ACC is a historically weak conference, by saying:

SEC teams have a winning percentage of 60% over BCS conference teams. It is important to note that that is inflated by the fact that 1 out of every 2 games against a BCS conference opponent was against an ACC team – the ACC being a historically weaker conference with less powerhouse teams than say the Big 10, Pac 10 or Big 12. Subtract out the ACC games and the SEC only has a winning percentage of 54%.

He says this without trying to empirically show that the ACC is in fact a weak conference (even though this is something everyone, self included, believes). He also fails to mention that even without the ACC games counted, the SEC has a winning record against all the other major conferences.