Southeastern Conference Arrogance

I think it's pretty clear that, top-to-bottom, the SEC is the best/toughest football conference in NCAA Division I football. I say that reluctantly, because SEC fans tend to be a little arrogant about that fact, and certainly not shy about taking their potshots at all the other conferences.

Okay, that's somewhat to be expected. But when the CBS analysts (CBS has the contract to broadcast SEC football games) doing the pre-game show for the Alabama-LSU game start calling into question the quality of other conferences, and raise doubts about whether Ohio State and Oregon deserve the rankings they have just because they don't play in the SEC, that's going a little too far.

I mean, it's one thing to say "Ohio State hasn't really played anybody." I agree, to some extent. It's quite another to take it to the level the CBS analysts took it. If you didn't see it, I can't adequately describe it. Let me just say it was unbecoming and self-serving (especially given CBS's role in covering SEC football).

It's the sort of thing that has me hoping the SEC winds up with a couple of 2-loss teams playing in the SEC Championship Game, thereby almost certainly precluding the winner of the game from going to the BCS Championship Game in New Orleans.

If Oregon and Ohio State win out (and that's a pretty big IF), I would love to see those teams paired up in a traditional Pac 10 vs. Big 10 bowl matchup (and don't even get me started on why I think that matchup should take place in the Rose Bowl rather than down in New Orleans in the "BCS Title Game"). But it will take another loss by LSU along the way for that to happen. Here's wishing for Arkansas (who, as an old Southwest Conference alum, I otherwise detest) to repeat what they did to the Tigers last year.

(With apologies to some of my blogging buddies down in Louisiana - especially those attending LSU - it's nothing personal against your Tigers, who I generally pull for among the SEC teams.)