How Tough is the SEC West Really?

It's a common opinion that the SEC is the strongest football conference in the country, and one of the arguments for that is the depth of its western division. If that be the case, what makes those teams so good to bear the burden of an entire conference?

In a word, the reason for the conference dominance is "recruiting." Collectively, the best players in high school football choose to play in the Southeastern Conference. More often than not, talent wins football games over X's and O's. If you've got the most talent in the country, you will be a heavy favorite to win the national championship.

Let's take a look at how the seven teams in the West have recruited over the past four years, going in alphabetical order.

According to 247Sports.com, Alabama has simply been the best in the country in recruiting. From 2012-2015, they were ranked as the number one class each season. In fact, in 2011, Bama was also ranked as the number one class. Bottom line, there is not a single player on Alabama's roster who has not been a part of a number one recruiting class.

From the same time frame, Arkansas was able to pull off the 28th, 23rd, 29th, and 23rd recruiting classes, respectively. Although they could never crack the top 20, having classes consistently in the top 30 is nothing to scoff at. In those four classes, Arkansas has been able to produce the biggest offensive line in all of football for two straight years. I'd say they've done halfway decent.

Auburn has been able to put together some really good recruiting classes over the past four years as well. Since 2012, the Tigers have put together the 11th, 10th, 6th, and 10th respective recruiting classes. When your worst class is just 11th in the nation, you're doing something right, even with a turn over in coaching, as Gus Malzahn took over the team in 2013.

The LSU Tigers are loaded with talent every year it seems under the tutelage of Les Miles, and it is a direct result of exceptional recruiting. Miles has been able to stack up the 14th, 6th, 2nd, and 5th ranked recruiting classes from 2012-2015, one of only eight teams that can brag about having three top 10 recruiting classes out of the four years (five teams of which are from the SEC).

Mississippi State surprised nearly everyone last season by rocketing up to #1 in polls for five straight weeks, in no small part due to their recruiting. It's extremely difficult to recruit to small town Starkville, MS, but Dan Mullen has found a formula that works. Classes that have ranked 22nd, 25th, 35th, and 18th over the past four years have built this program into a top 20 team.

Ole Miss is close to getting the program back to where they were when Eli Manning was taking snaps, all thanks to head coach Hugh Freeze and his ability to recruit high level talent. In 2012, the Rebels could only muster the 46th ranked class, but since then, they've rallied the 8th, 15th, and 17th ranked recruiting classes.

The new kids on the block aren't so new anymore, and now they're realizing just how much of an advantage it is to recruit in the Southeastern Conference. The Aggies of Texas A&M have reaped the benefits of recruiting the Southeast and the state of Texas, garnering the 16th, 9th, 5th, and 11th ranked recruiting classes since 2012.

In short, other than Ole Miss's outlier season in 2012 where they ranked 46th, the worst ranked recruiting class for all seven teams in the West is 35th since 2012. You won't be able to find another conference, let alone another division, that can use that as a claim to fame.

So, we've looked at recruiting. We have seen that all seven teams are loaded with talent. Other than talent, what is it that makes good teams "good?"

Coaching.

And if you should scour the land of college football, you won't find a better group of head coaches than in the SEC West.

Nick Saban, Gus Malzahn, Bret Bielema, Kevin Sumlin, Dan Mullen, Hugh Freeze, and Les Miles. Among them you'll find six national championship appearances (at their current school), two losses in said national championship games (one by default, LSU in the 2012 BCS National Championship Game), and a collective win percentage of 71.8%.

But enough about their accomplishments, let's dive into the each team's stats. Maybe we'll find something that will prove how good these teams really are.

Last season, we witnessed a record breaking Alabama offense. Literally, it was offensive production that no one has ever seen in the history of Crimson Tide football. They gained 484.7 yards per game, an Alabama record. Blake Sims threw for 3487 yards, the most by a single quarterback in a season in Alabama history.They also ran 1018 plays last season, the only time in Alabama history in which the Tide ran more than 1000 plays in a single season.

We all know that Auburn is a high octane offense, predicated by the spread-power run game. They ran for 255.46 yards per game last season, good enough for 15th in the nation; they also scored 35.5 points/game, and played 11 teams with winning records last season, tallying up 493.3 total offensive yards per game against them.

Arkansas was easily the best six-loss team in the nation last season, however weird that may sound. They were just a play or two away from beating Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State (who was ranked #1 at the time), and Missouri, plus they shut out both LSU and Ole Miss. To show how good they really were, they decided to blow out the Texas Longhorns 31-7 in the 2014 Avocare V100 Texas Bowl.

The LSU Tigers were one of the best defenses in the entire country last season, giving up only 316.8 yards per game, and only allowing 17.5 points per game, which ranked them inside the top 5 of the country. They also boasted the best first down passing defense in the nation, allowing only a 94.25 passer rating, along with being the only team in the country to not allow a single pass touchdown on first down all season.

Mississippi State possessed one of the most explosive offenses in the country last season, leading the SEC in yards per game (513.8) and finishing 13th in the country in yards/play (6.67). The were also ranked #5 in the country in total yards against Power 5 conference teams (508.8). However, they were also a legitimate threat on third downs. They converted 45.96% of their third downs, but the Bulldogs had a passer rating of 164.27 and also ran for nine touchdowns on third downs in 2014, good enough for 7th and 6th in the country, respectively.

Ole Miss was able to have their best season since 2009 last year under the guidance of Hugh Freeze, mainly in part to a stingy defense. The Rebels boasted the best scoring defense in the country (16.0 points/game) and were 5th in the nation in interceptions (12) and 8th in total turnovers forced (32).

The Texas A&M Aggies may have been a liability on defense, but they were nothing shy of spectacular on the offensive side of the ball, especially through the air. They ranked 12th in the nation in passing yards/game (305.5) and 7th in touchdowns thrown (39). Any team coached by Kevin Sumlin will be elite in the passing game, and with the experience that Kyle Allen gained last season after the benching of Kenny Hill, he should only continue the impressive air attack of the Aggies.

It's taken me more than 1240 words to point out something so blatantly obvious: the SEC West is the strongest division in FBS football. Sure it's been two full seasons since the SEC has won a national championship, but if you compare the entirety of the SEC to the other Power 5 conferences, you'd just be grasping at straws to make the argument that the SEC isn't the best conference.

Whether you're an offensive or defensive person, it's all there at an elite level in the SEC.