Before I get started, I want to apologize to some of you and to mention a caveat to all of you. First, I apologize to fans of the SEC schools who are not represented in this article. For the purposes of this article, the Big Six consists of those teams who are at the top of the heap in SEC football. That doesn't mean that these teams never lose to the other teams, but that, year in and out, you can count on your SEC champion coming from one of these six schools. You can also count on the fact that when these teams play each other, they receive more media hype than when the other teams play each other or even when one of the Big Six plays one of the other six. ("Other six"...I know, it sounds so derogatory...sorry!)

The only team I can see possibly crashing the party is Arkansas. I believe Petrino will have UA ready to compete at a high level much sooner than many folks expect. His arrival at Arkansas certainly just made the SEC West a lot tougher.

OK, now for the caveat. These are my predictions as of July 22, 2008. I plan to make predictions weekly as the season progresses, and obviously, I'll know more about these teams on October 25th, for example, than I know today. So, just because I'm picking a team to win a game today doesn't mean I'll pick them when game week rolls around.

Right. So, the Big Six consists of Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, LSU, and Tennessee. These teams have won the right to be here based on the current status of their program as well as their history of on-the-field excellence. Once again, this doesn't mean that the other programs are bad; just that these programs are generally considered the cream of the SEC. One of the Big Six teams has won the SEC Championship since 1976, and even then Kentucky shared the crown with Georgia. And like it or not, your 2008 SEC Champion will come from the Big Six too.

So how will these teams fare against each other this year? To find out, let's take a look at the games that will be played amongst them.

Auburn v LSU

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