SEC Update

It has been a strange season for the SEC.  Is it still the preeminent conference?  Yes.  Does the nation's best team still reside there?  Yes.  Is it a conference packed with superstars and top coaches?  Yes.
But something is amiss.  The player currently receiving the most press--and he is arguably the finest player in the conference--is none other than Jadeveon Clowney of South Carolina.  There is not much more to say about his situation, one in which everyone seems to be at fault, but there are enough great players performing well that are not getting the headlines he is getting for not playing.  And at 4-1 the Gamecocks are still very much alive in the SEC East race (although Georgia had better start losing soon) and yet the biggest story in the aftermath of Clowney's opting out of the Kentucky game is whether his actions hurt not the Gamecocks but his draft stock.
But there is more.  Johnny Manziel's off-field excitement has long overshadowed the play of the Aggies on the field while the coverage of the LSU season has focused on stud RB Jeremy Hill's transgressions and what role coach Les Miles played in the sordid mess at Oklahoma State.  And there have been accusations and rumors about a number of other SEC programs and the ways they may have broken rules over the years.
And there is another reality, one that may be hard to overcome.  A few years ago the conference was honored for its strong play as evidenced by the number of recent winners of national championships (LSU, Florida, Alabama, Auburn).  That streak of course continues but one program has pulled away from the others and Alabama's dominance threatens to deflate the merits of the others.  And so while there have been some exciting games involving SEC teams this year there is also a sense that anything these teams do does not matter in the end because Alabama will win anyway.  And even those teams that beat Alabama, like LSU two years ago and A&M last year, cannot truly stop the Tide steamroller--and Bama avenges those losses soon enough.
But we will not play that game here.  Alabama will probably not lose the "Bear Bryant Bowl" to Kentucky this weekend, but they have not won the 2013 SEC and national titles yet.  And as for the rest of the league, the big games this weekend are Georgia hosting upstart Missouri, Florida traveling to LSU and Texas A&M tangling with Mississippi.  Should be fun.