Florida Gators Prove The SEC Is Still The King by Beating the Oklahoma Sooners

Many of college football's so called "experts" have been saying that the SEC wasn't quite as good in 2008. It was something we, in the SEC, had gotten used to hearing every year as we started tearing each other apart in conference play.

In fact, they said it so much this year that even SEC fanatics, like me, began to believe it may be true this time.

After all, all those teams out in the Big 12 were scoring 50 to 60 points per game and making it look so easy.

Meanwhile, down in the SEC, we were still playing games that ended in scores like 28-17. I must admit, that looked pretty weak compared to the Big 12 scoring.

Watching ESPN every week and listening to Kirk Herbstreit and the boys on Game Day, you would have to come to the conclusion that the SEC had just fallen behind the learning curve in college football.

We were still playing that old style of football, where you actually try to stop the other team from scoring instead of just trying to outscore them.

Oh, there were a few, like myself, that protested and blamed the high scoring in the Big 12 on poor defenses, rather than record-breaking offenses, but that explanation was scoffed at by all these so called college football gurus, especially the Big 12 fans.

You see, I just couldn't make myself believe that all of a sudden all the great offenses just appeared almost overnight, and all of a sudden all the great quarterbacks were in the Big 12.

I would watch the Big 12 games and wonder what everyone was seeing that I wasn't seeing. The talking heads were all seeing great offenses running and passing, up and down the field.

Meanwhile, I sat there wondering why nobody was rushing the quarterback and why that receiver so wide open on that touchdown? Where were the defenses?

Had the Big 12 quietly developed super-human offensive linemen, lightning-fast receiver, and laser guided quarterbacks in a secret laboratory somewhere beneath the Rocky Mountains in some sort of genetics experiment?

At one time, these experts actually had three Big 12 teams ranked in the top five of the BCS poll. 

I sat there and suffered through week after week of listening to ESPN, CBS, ABC, and Fox Network talking heads showing Michael Crabtree, Colt McCoy, and Sam Bradford, scoring what seemed like hundreds of touchdowns on the highlight shows, and Ijust  waited.

What was I waiting for? I was waiting for these Big 12 super teams to come out of there cozy conference schedule and play teams that would actually have the gall to stand in their way. Teams that wouldn't play 20 yards off on the receivers and could collapse those cozy pockets around those great quarterbacks.

I checked the rule book and there it was...defenses are allowed to try and stop the other team from scoring.

Good, I was beginning to think they had changed the rules.

Finally, the postseason arrived. I checked the Bowl matchups. Damn, only two SEC-Big 12 matchups. I was hoping for more. 

It would have to do for now.

In the Cotton Bowl, it would be the Big 12's Cinderella, the Texas Tech Red Raiders vs. Ole Miss Rebels, and then in the BCS Championship Game, the Oklahoma Sooners vs. the Florida Gators.

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