Thanks, Ears, for saying what needed to be said.

Tommy Tuberville made some comments about the BCS that have many in the sports world talking. I personally agree whole-heartedly with what he said. The BCS is nothing more than a popularity contest, won by flashy offenses. As I said in a previous post, "Defense wins championships, but offense wins votes". As I listened to RivalsRadio on my drive to work this morning, there were several calls dealing with this topic. The host (Bill King, I believe) was saying that with Bama's offense in its current state, this was not one of Alabama's better teams. I contend that our offense is lightyears ahead of the 1992 Bama offense, and our defense is on par with that one, too. Did anyone give that team a chance? NO! Also, look at the 1998 Tennessee National Championship team. Great offense? I think not! This was the post-Peyton Manning era, and Tee Martin was on the borderline between average and terrible.
Another comment Bill King made was that even though Texas plays in a weak conference this year, they are still a great team. HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?!!! You have to prove you are a great team by playing it out on the field, not by blowing out weak opponents. Texas playing an SEC schedule finishes with at least one if not three conference losses (and you can quote that!)
I am sick of these comments about Georgia and Alabama (and for that matter, Auburn of last year) not being "as good" as these "top tier" teams. BULL$#&*! The SEC has many dominant defenses, just look at the stats. The way you rank defenses is by how little offense they allow. Texas might have a good defense, but they have given up more points and yardage against weaker opposition than Alabama and Georgia. It is next to impossible to finish an SEC schedule and have great offensive stats.
Think back one year to what everyone was saying about Auburn, USC and Oklahoma. "Auburn is pretty good, but not as good as Oklahoma". "Oklahoma deserves to play for the championship because they are obviously better than Auburn".
Find me one columnist after the season that still contended that Oklahoma was better than Auburn! Just one! Auburn's defense would have given USC fits last year. I am not going to go out on a limb and predict who would have won that game, but I will say that it should have been played! I am positive it would not have been a blowout like the USC-Oklahoma game was.
One other point that makes me believe that Coach Tuberville was absolutely right is that last year's Auburn team was chided for playing a weak schedule. Of the remaining unbeaten teams in the country right now, Texas has by far the weakest schedule, yet they already have plane tickets to Pasadena. What does a team have to do to change that?
Let me give you a hypothetical situation. If Georgia and Alabama win their remaining games and play for the SEC championship, Alabama will have played FOUR teams who have been ranked in the top FIVE at some point this season:

1. Tennessee opened the season ranked 3rd.
2. By week 4, LSU was 3rd.
3. Also in week 4, Florida was 5th.
4. Georgia currently sits at 4th.

Now tell me that Texas plays a tougher schedule than that! They only have 3 teams on their entire schedule who have been ranked in the top 25 (including Colorado at 24). In my opinion, if Alabama OR Georgia were to win out, one of those two MUST play for the National Championship! And that's all I'll say about that! ROLL TIDE ROLL!!!!!

Time to Reassess

We're just beyond the halfway point in the season and its time to reassess the complexion of the SEC and college football in general. I will offer up my opinions on the standings and the future of the SEC for what its worth.
One thing is certain and that is that NO conference plays defense better than the SEC. If you were to take away the weaker teams playing weak schedules, the SEC would probably have 5 of the top 10 defenses in the country. I hesitate to rank them, but I know that Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee all stand above the rest of the conference and the rest of the country in defensive ability. Statistically speaking through 7 games, Alabama is 4th, Florida 5th, Auburn 8th, Tennessee 13th and Georgia 14th in NCAA Total Defense. In Scoring Defense, Alabama is 3rd, Auburn 4th, Georgia 5th, Tennessee 10th, and Florida 11th in the country. Oh, and let's not forget a pretty good LSU defense that is not ranked far beyond these guys. As the old saying goes, defense wins championships, but unfortunately for the SEC (both last year and this year), offense wins voters.
As far as the SEC standings go, the West still appears to be a three team race, while the East has been narrowed to two. Alabama is obviously still in the driver's seat since they have no losses, but a loss to LSU in three weeks would make LSU the favorite. Auburn has to hope for an Alabama win at LSU, then an Auburn victory over the Tide on the Plains the following week. My personal opinion of this race is still that Alabama and Auburn are the best two teams, even though LSU voodooed their way to another home victory this past weekend. I am not of the belief that Alabama's offense is dead without Tyrone Prothro like some media are saying. We definitely miss Pro, but we also suffer from our success. We got Ole Miss' best game of the season last week (and we were perhaps a little flat), and a great effort from Tennessee's defense this week. I think Brodie, Darby, Hall and Brown will be able to score points against both LSU and Auburn, so I am not overly concerned about offense (at this point). I am more concerned about how well Auburn's Brandon Cox has looked under pressure. With Auburn's defense, and their good offensive performances against some good defenses, they still present our biggest challenge ahead.
Georgia basically needs a win over Florida in "The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" this week to finish the East, but that looks a little more grim with the news that DJ Shockley will likely miss that game. Georgia's backup QB (Joe Tereshinski) and the Dawg defense will have to really step up their games this week to get out of that one alive. I don't want to predict a Florida victory because the Georgia QB situation is an unknown factor, but Florida will likely be the favorite without Shockley.
My prediction is that Georgia will lose at least one of their remaining games (likely either Auburn or Florida), and that Alabama will beat LSU, and either squeak out a victory or lose a close one to Auburn (hopefully the former). Its just too close to call at this point.
As for the rest of the country, it doesn't appear that Texas will lose a game and they will likely head to Pasadena (unless our old coach fraud can upset them). USC looks almost unbeatable, but they still have to get by Cal and UCLA, which could prove to be two extremely tough matchups. Virginia Tech is playing good football and will be favored in all of their games from here to the end, but they still must play in a conference championship game (likely against Florida State, I think).
Alabama's only hope for getting into the National Championship picture would be for someone to upset either USC or Texas and Virginia Tech. Long odds on that happening, I'm afraid. Who knows what would happen if UGA and Bama both went undefeated and played each other in the SEC Championship game. Maybe that would sway some votes, and it would definitely help the computer rankings, but I don't know if it would be enough. Only time will tell. There's still a lot of football to be played. Roll Tide!