Aaaaand They're Off!

That band of players known as the Dangerous Dozen is off on another season of head blocking, running, passing and kicking in another rendition of SEC Football. Some started early, back in late August, some the last Saturday, and one on September 1. They all played it safe and played a non-conference opponent, hopefully not to lose so early. So much for THAT idea!

If you are familiar with a play called "Best Christmas Pageant Ever", you know of a family called the Herdmans. The SEC is college football's version of the Herdman family. None can stand the others, but they all get together and play the game and aim to beat each other up every week. Some do it royally, some do it lamely. But, week in and week out, it's always unpredictable what's gonna happen on any field, any week.

Looking back over years of this ritual, there have been the notable games,
unbelievable outcomes, total disasters, as happens in any league of teams. But this is the SEC, the toughest one in the country. Lots of other teams in lots of other conferences delight the pollsters and get high rankings. But its all smoke and mirrors, I tell you. One year Ohio State was on top of the hill, and met Florida in the Rose Bowl. Florida came away with a win, feeling like they knew they'd played tougher games against SEC teams in the regular season.

States in the SEC mostly have two teams in the conference, but there are as many that do as those that don't. Dividing up the conference when it went to 12 teams made sense; the way it was done didn't quite. But then again the West has two two-team states and the East has only one, so I guess it came out right.

This is one of those leagues that has teams full of surprises and fighting spirit that makes it much more of a contender than you might expect. And then there are coaches who are leading their second SEC team and not doing as well as they did with the first one-yet.

Some traditions die hard and costly sometimes. Whenever Tennessee went on the road, the students of the opposing school liked to throw oranges at em. This died as a tradition in 1980, when the team was pelted as they came out on the field at Auburn. This resulted in another pelting, where Auburn got burned 42-0 that day. Nobody throws oranges anymore.

SEC coaches have been known for their traditions, too. Bear Bryant had his legendary hat, Lou Holtz his ballet routine along the sidelines. His was one of the most expressive faces in SEC football. Lou was a two teamer, like Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban, Houston Nutt and Tommy Tuberville. Only difference was Spurrier and Saban had very short pro careers between their SEC terms.

One school, Tennessee, lays claim to a stadium that is the fourth largest city in the state when it's full. Neyland Stadium seats 108,000, and puts in more seats in the skyboxes whenever Michigan ups their total. UT and Michigan have the two biggest on campus stadia in the country. With 108,000 seats, football is not a game in Tennessee; it's a religion, with injured players on everybody's prayer lists along with ailing relatives and farm animals.

Back in 1988 the Hogs of Arkansas, decided they were tired of the Southwest Conference, it's mostly Texas population, looked at the money bags in the SEC, and joined it. Same for South Carolina, adding a team on either end, and making it a 12-team conference. That's right. It may be because the schools are in or near more large population centers than any other 1A athletic conference, or that it just plain plays tougher football than anybody else on game day. But whatever the reason, the SEC historically has brought in more TV revenue for its games than any other conference in the country.

Sometimes you think you are on re-building year, and the team wins a national championship! Sometimes you think you will do well, and end up with a losing season. With a 12 game regular season, the winning teams in each division end up in Atlanta for the conference title, and each one ends up in a bowl game. The winner ends up in a BCS game, and the loser in just another bowl, one of too many. That makes a 14 game season for the top performers of each year. But, as Tennessee Coach Philip Fulmer will tell you, there's not a lot of difference in quality from best to worst nowadays. Anybody beats anybody in a given game, on a given day. That's SEC Football!