The league is more balanced now and it is producing more championship level teams than it did during the 90s. That's just stats. The one difference was that the powers were down. So while yeah, VU, Uk, Usce, etc are basically .500, that's their zone and always has been. When teams like Alabama, Lsu and even Aub a few times are down, it's odd. And they all had a few bad years during Spurrier's time.
But that's not to say the schedule is harder today than it was then. I'm certainly not in that camp. Someone referenced '96 above, and yes, that was a very tough schedule. If I remember correctly even our opener Gsu was a really good team. So no disputing that. The difficulty is the same, which is why 11 wins(the old 10) is a really good season, but nothing spectacular. The issue, and difference, was our biggest hurdles were usually 1 SEC team, and then fsu. So we could drop a game somewhere, lose to the noles, but still win a championship. We can't do that now because that hurdle is in our division. So a year like '93, one of my favorites growing up, wouldn't happen today. Because instead of losing our toughest 2 matchups(a road game to Aub and home game to fsu), but still having a chance to win the conference, we'd be eliminated from contention(like this year), because the toughest two challenges are within the SEC. That's all I'm saying with regards to "winning something". It's a different playing field because of who is our thorn, not that there are more of them.
Also, to the point about '95 and '96 being great teams that would crush this uga and lsu team, I'd agree wholeheartedly. But that was also Spurrier's 5th and 6th year. We're in year 2 of Mullen. Now, I can agree that you may not see anything yet that tells you we'll reach that level. That's your view. But it doesn't say definitively we won't. we just have to wait and see. But if we're winning 10-11 games along the way, it's not an awful scenario to watch play out, imo.
