Click here for linkTalk about it in Talk of Champions
The Southeastern Conference's sensible geographic divisions - Eastern Time Zone teams (and Vanderbilt) in the East and Central Time Zone teams in the West - has served the league well over the past 20 years, far better than the random assignment of teams that prevails in the Big Ten or Atlantic Coast Conference. To this day, I couldn't tell you the ACC division in which North Carolina plays without looking it up.
Hopefully, the SEC's logical divisions will survive expansion. With the benefit of experience, the SEC leadership should see what the ACC and Big Ten have not. Trying to gerrymander equality in football can work in the short run, but time, in the long run, will push the pendulum from one side to the other and back.
Rest assured, though, at the moment, the balance of SEC power isn't balanced at all. It sits squarely in the Western Division.
It isn't just the division now occupies the top two spots in the Associated Press college football poll. It runs deeper, as this weekend's results showed. Alabama didn't just beat Florida, a team that is considered an East contender. The Crimson Tide handed the Gators their worst home defeat in nearly a decade.
Furthermore, Auburn - a West Division team that been regarded lightly, if at all, by SEC watchers - went to Columbia and beat the East front-runners, South Carolina. I know Stephen Garcia played with the stability and poise of Lindsay Lohan, but it was still a fine road win for the Tigers. Arkansas, playing out of conference (or was it? It's hard to keep up), spotted Texas A&M an 18-point halftime advantage and roared back to win in an impressive offensive display. Even much-maligned Ole Miss went to Fresno State and won. The only blemish on an otherwise flawless weekend in the West was Mississippi State's lackluster loss at Georgia.
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