22 Days Until Kansas Football: What if KU were in the SEC?

Fortunately, this series is almost over. We’ve looked at every G5 conference, and we’re winding our way through the rest of the P5. Today, it’s the mighty SEC.

I’ll be honest, I came away rather unimpressed with the SEC after crunching these numbers. The SEC is basically Alabama, LSU, Auburn, and then everybody else. Sorry not sorry; that’s just how it is.

As always, we’ll use the F+ ratings available at FootballOutsiders.com. If you read up, the two components of F+ (S&P+ and FEI) both adjust for opponents and strength of schedule, so this should theoretically give us a pretty good idea of how well Kansas would fare outside of the Big 12.

By the numbers, KU would have just one win in the SEC over the past five years: Vanderbilt in 2014. However, KU-Kentucky would have been fun in 2013. Maybe even KU-Arkansas. And KU-Tennessee might have been competitive last year. Ok, fine, it wouldn’t have been, but seeing Tennessee down there with Nebraska in triple digits is funny to me.

Plus, KU isn’t going 0-5 against Missouri. The longest winning streak Missouri has ever had against KU was five games, and that was from 1938-1942. So considering mU won the final three matchups from 2009-11, we can logically assume KU would have won in 2015 at the latest, if not two or three other times.

Overall, fortunately, KU hasn’t met up with any SEC schools on the gridiron lately. For the most part, it looks like it wouldn’t have gone well.

Fun Fact: Kansas hasn’t played an SEC school in football since playing at Auburn in 1988. The Jayhawks are 5-7-1 all-time vs the SEC (including two bowl games), and have only played Auburn, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Mississippi State, and Tennessee.