Congratulations to the Florida Gators, who have secured their second national championship in 100 years of playing football. The Gators not only answered the question of the sports punditry--whether the Florida defense could slow down Troy Smith and the Buckeye offense--they trampled on it, threw it around, and crushed it in to the earth of the stadium in Glendale. Much like they did to Heisman Trophy winner Smith. I'm sure the manhandling of Ohio State by Florida comes as a surprise to those who spend little time paying attention to SEC football, which, judging from the press coverage of the last month, leading right up to the kickoff, includes pretty much every sports writer and television personality in the country. These are the same pundits who seem fixated on the Big Ten, an independent team continually in the national mind only because of a TV broadcast deal, and a former-glory team from a mediocre West Coast conference. Perhaps now that two SEC teams have soundly trounced the aforementioned independent team and the season-long number-one Big Ten team, they will sit up and take notice of the powerhouse that is the Southeastern Conference. (Somehow, though, I doubt it.) Lest, dear reader, you think I speak too quickly with this post's pronouncement of the SEC being the best conference in the land, allow me to recap the post-season bowl records for you: * The Big Ten, from whence the former number-one Ohio State Buckeyes hail, finished a woeful 2-5 in bowl play. * The Big 12 finished only one game better at 3-5. * The pathetically mediocre Pac-10 finished at a pathetically mediocre .500, going 3-3. * The "up and coming" ACC, which was supposed to become a powerhouse conference after the uniting of Florida State, Miami, and Virginia Tech under the same banner, also finished even, at 4-4. * You may point to the Big East's 5-0 record in bowl play as something worthy of note, until you compare the fact that the bowls in which the Big East played were of little consequence, with the exception of the Orange Bowl, which I am sure will be the lowest-rated of the BCS bowls because it featured a pair of teams pretty much no one cared about, nationally speaking. What you should take from this then, dear reader--other than the fact that there are way too many bowl games now--is that the SEC finishes 6-3, and is home of the national champion for two of the past four years. The SEC earned more bowl spots than any other conference, and won more bowl games than any other conference. Yet I'll wager you there won't be more than one SEC team in the pre-season Top 5 for the 2007 season, given the fixations the sports media and coaches are afflicted with. The 2006 college football season is now at an end, and I already await the 2007 season's start in August. The SEC will be leading the way. Sports pundits, please pay attention.

How do you like Romo now? :D Sorry, I'm a little giddy at the moment. I wonder what Drew Bledsoe is thinking.

Mark Schlabach perfectly sums up my feelings regarding the constantly overrated Fighting Irish. Those pollsters who had them at #2 in the rankings at the beginning of the season look, well, pretty stupid right now, don't they?

Dear ESPN, I realize that it's a pretty big deal that Nick Saban deserted the Miami Dolphins to become the highest paid college football coach in the country, but don't you think it's newsworthy that LSU exposed how overrated Notre Dame is in the Sugar Bowl last night, and that that should dominate the College Football home page? Please rectify this at your earliest convenience. Thanks, Retrophisch Update: It appears I've been heard. (Shush and allow me this delusion, will you?) As of 12:20 PM CST when I checked the College Football home page, the upcoming championship game between Florida and Ohio State has replaced Saban as the main news of the moment. Still no love for my Tigers from the SEC-bigoted blowhards at ESPN.

Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick. How could you do this to us? How could you do this to the team you already had a commitment to? I think I can speak for a lot of LSU fans in saying that we wanted to see the coach who brought the Tigers their second national championship do well. I'm not a huge fan of the NFL, and I don't really cheer for any team in particular, but I wanted to see Nick Saban turn things around at Miami and lead a successful career as a NFL head coach. While I, like many, was disappointed to see Saban leave LSU, I could certainly understand his departure: after summitting the highest point in college football, he was ready for the next challenge. Except Saban didn't really give the next challenge the time--and thus, the effort--to do the same in the NFL that he did in the NCAA. It takes an extremely rare coach to turn a football team in a complete one-eighty in two years or less. Nick Saban, for all his prowess as a football coach, is not amoung that rare number. For Saban, the 2006 season in Miami was actually worse than 2005, and there must have been something in the Dolphins' organization that told him 2007 wasn't going to get any better. I could certainly be wrong, but Saban has never struck me as the kind of guy who would shy away from a challenge, unless he knew the challenge wasn't worth it. Then, of course, there's the money. Nick Saban has become the highest-paid coach in college football, and he hasn't won a game in Tuscaloosa yet. For all appearances, it appears that Pat Forde is right, and Saban is just as shallow as, well, pretty much anyone else. Not surprising, but certainly disappointing. Those who keep their word and stick around to the end of their contract become increasingly rare with each passing season. But, Nick. Alabama? Alabama? LSU fans would be glad to welcome you back to the ranks of college football, even to the ranks of the SEC. But Alabama? Of all the teams you could have chosen to come back to, you have to pick the one with the most obnoxious fans in the Southeastern Conference. Fans who, though some of them aren't old enough to remember Bear Bryant, pine for the glory days of Alabama football, and hope to see the ghost of the Bear return again to lead them to another championship. (And it doesn't help that the same sports punditry which lauds USC and Notre Dame today for what those schools accomplished in yesteryear, do the same for Alabama and the days of Bear Bryant, as if there are no other schools in the south playing football and winning national championships.) Then again, perhaps the Crimson Tide will get what they deserve. They want to win, and Saban has shown, at the college level at least, that he can deliver in that department. (After all, under Saban the Tigers were undefeated at Bryant-Denny Stadium, so we know it's possible for him to win in Tuscaloosa.) But as Ivan Maisel points out, Saban is no Bryant, and now, having shown his true color--green--Alabama fans should in no way place any amount of trust in Saban sticking around for the long term. He may bring them a championship, but it's unlikely he'll deliver what they most lust for: a dynasty.