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SEC and Big 12 folks have been tweaking the Big Ten and Pac-12's love of the Rose Bowl of late. That made me grin because the primary motivation for those tweaks was jealousy.

Don't buy that assessment? Well, then what do you make of this: The SEC and Big 12 champions, starting in 2014 after the current BCS contract expires and we presumably adopt a four-team playoff, will meet annually in a prime time New Year's Day "bowl" game.

Unless, of course, the SEC and/or Big 12 champions are selected for the four-team playoff, which one is almost certain to be and both are likely to be.

But, if one or both is selected for the playoff, then, just like the Rose Bowl, a No. 2 team from both or either conference will be selected.

So the SEC and Big 12 have adopted the Rose Bowl model in its entirety. Other than the fact that they can't play in the Rose Bowl stadium as the sun goes down over the San Gabriel Mountains.

The location has not been set. The Sugar Bowl (SEC) and Fiesta Bowl (Big 12) already have a dog in this fight, but expect bids to come from Jerry Jones and his deluxe Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, as well as a play from Atlanta.

By the way, the Rose Bowl jealousy stuff is mostly good-natured ribbing while I'm gaping at another sudden shift in college football's tectonic plates.

Folks, this stuff is amazing, and there's a stunning plot twist seemingly on a weekly basis -- Florida State to the Big 12? Notre Dame back in play?

The main take-away: This is a step closer to four power conferences, with the ACC and Big East finding their footing suddenly precarious.

And, if you want to worry, Pac-12 fans, it looks like the SEC and Big 12 are being far more aggressive -- read: expansionist -- as college football remakes itself. Keep in mind that the Pac-12 could have ended the Big 12 last September and become the first 16-team super-conference if Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech had made a jump.

Pac-12 presidents might end up regretting their decision not to expand -- and giving Oklahoma, in particular, the shaft. Newly enriched by a mega-TV deal, they might have lost track of the big picture while they were counting their money.

Commissioner Larry Scott has long held that further consolidation at the top of college football was inevitable. This is another example of him proving right, though this time without a blockbuster deal for Pac-12 folks to celebrate.

This latest news is a reason to get nervous. Or to just marvel at how quickly the game has changed.

At the Pac-12 meetings last week in Phoenix, it became clear that conference coaches and athletic directors as well as commissioner Larry Scott favor a potential four-team college football playoff including a requirement that each of the four participants wins its respective conference championship.

The reasoning for that is logical and unassailable: A national title contender should first prove it's the best team in its conference. College football folks -- coaches, administrators, etc. -- frequently talk about preserving the value of the regular season. Not requiring a playoff team to win its conference directly contravenes that.

On the other side of the playoff debate are the folks who don't want any such requirements. They say introducing one muddies things up. They say it's important to pick the "four best teams." Keep it simple and credible!

Four best teams? Er, how will we determine that? The ole BCS rankings? A selection committee?

Not acceptable.

There needs to be give and take here. If the Pac-12 and Big Ten are going to sacrifice their automatic tie-in to the Rose Bowl, that means they need to get something in return. Thankfully, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany already has proposed an equitable plan that allows for both sides of this debate to get most of what they want.

It's the top-six plan: Conference champions would be required to be ranked in the top six of the final rankings in order to earn automatic berths in the four-team playoff. If four conference champions aren't ranked in the top six, then the highest ranked at-large teams would fill however many voids there are.

CBS Sports' Brett McMurphy went through all the scenarios. He found that, since 2004, only seven top-four teams in the final BCS standings would have missed the playoffs with this top-six plan.

Writes McMurphy:

Under this format, in the past eight years, 30 of the 32 teams in the playoff would have been conference champions. Only two teams -- No. 2 Alabama (in 2011) and No. 4 Ohio State (in 2005) -- that weren't a conference champion would have qualified for the national semifinals.

Using the conference affiliation for the schools for each season and not their future affiliation, the SEC would have had the most schools in the playoffs from 2004-11 with eight, including seven conference champions. The Pac-12 and Big 12 would have been next, each with six schools, followed by the Big Ten with five (four conference champions, one at-large), the Mountain West with four, the Big East with two and the ACC with one.

Of the Mountain West's four representatives, two were by Utah, now in the Pac-12, and two by TCU, which joins the Big 12 this fall.

That sounds about right.

The teams left out? Stanford and Texas, both twice, and Alabama, Michigan and LSU.

That sounds about right.

The best scenario to look at is 2008. From McMurphy's breakdown:

Top 6 ranked teams: No. 1 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ), No. 2 Florida (SEC champ), No. 3 Texas (at-large), No. 4 Alabama (at-large), No. 5 USC (Pac-10 champ), No. 6 Utah (Mountain West champ).

Conference champs in four-team playoff: No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 2 Florida, No. 5 USC, No. 6 Utah.

Non-conference champs in four-team playoff: None.

Top-6 teams left out: No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Alabama.

Revisionist history: The good news is that the top four conference champions are all ranked among the nation's top six teams. The bad news is No. 3 Texas and No. 4 Alabama, both of which didn't win their conference, would not be included in the playoff. Lower ranked, but conference champion, USC (No. 5) and Utah (No. 6) would have made the field.

In 2008, the top-six model would have created a far superior postseason. The most likely scenario would have seen USC, clearly the best team in 2008, beating Utah, which physically manhandled Alabama 31-17 in the Sugar Bowl, for the national title.

Wait ... did I just pull one of those "Just because" deals there, making assumptions about how good a team is?

Yes, I did. Most folks outside of the Southeast -- including Vegas bookies -- believed USC was the best team in 2008. It finished the regular season with the same record as Florida and Oklahoma, but its loss on the road against an Oregon State team that won nine games was deemed worse than the Gators' and Sooners' blemishes. That judgment was arbitrary and ran counter to what many folks believed: The Trojans in 2008 would have left a bootprint on the foreheads of either Florida or Oklahoma.

And, of course, when Utah held Alabama to 208 total yards -- 31 yards rushing! -- it's nearly impossible to say the Crimson Tide belonged in the same building. Oh, that's right, an Alabama team playing in its first BCS bowl game since 1999 was SO disappointed that it lost the SEC title game that it decided not to try hard in the Sugar Bowl. Please.

Of course, this analysis is bothering some folks. Good. That's how the "Just because" stuff felt for the Trojans in 2008 and for Oklahoma State last year. The most certain way to ensure the new four-team playoff will foment annual controversy is to make the "Just because" element its foundation. We'll still be debating the subjectivity -- and inherent biases -- of the system for weeks as the season winds down.

See, out here on the West Coast, the top-six plan seems simple. It seems fair. It doesn't muddy anything up. It actually provides clarity: Win your conference.

It first tries to award the highest-rated conference champions for, you know, accomplishing something during the regular season, then it makes sure that we don't end up with a three-loss team in the playoff.

It's the best and most equitable endgame in the four-team playoff scenario. And the Pac-12 and Big Ten should fight for it.

PHOENIX -- Pac-12 coaches and athletic directors generally expressed optimism over the expected move toward a four-team college football playoff in 2014, but there was plenty of caution as well as a smack of defiance during the conference's spring meetings at the posh Arizona Biltmore Hotel.

Some, such as Utah coach Kyle Whittingham and Washington State coach Mike Leach, don't think four teams is enough. Some worried about losing the bowl games, particularly the Pac-12's longstanding and storied connection to the Rose Bowl. And just about everyone was concerned about the selection process.

That defiance? It's rooted in the general belief that some other conferences excel at masterful scheduling (read: avoiding challenging competition) and massaging public perception (read: creating a consensus of superiority based significantly on subjective judgments).

If the Pac-12 and Big 12 play nine conference games, and the ACC, SEC and Big Ten play eight, then those conferences are playing by different standards that have myriad measurable effects. If one conference features a majority of teams playing at least one or two tough nonconference foes a year and another features a majority of teams playing four directional schools, then those conferences are playing by different standards that have myriad measurable effects.

Even if one of those conferences has won six consecutive national titles.

"You need some competitive equity within all of the conferences if you are going to do this thing," USC athletic director Pat Haden said. "But if you're going to have a conference, it seems to me you should be playing your conference opponents rather than non-conference opponents. In USC and Stanford's case we really have 10 conference games if you include Notre Dame, because we both have a long history of playing Notre Dame."

While the sentiment is strong among the coaches to reduce the Pac-12 conference schedule to eight games, sentiments mostly lean the other way among the athletic directors. The topic was discussed this week, but commissioner Larry Scott confirmed that there is no short-term plan to reduce the conference slate to eight games.

A big reason for that: There's a wait-and-see attitude on the details of the four-team playoff. While, based on media reports, there seems to be considerable momentum behind incorporating the bowls into the new system, there is little consensus on the selection process for the four participating teams.

That is where the coaches have a dog in this fight. They don't really care where they play, but they do want to know how they get there.

"I'd hate to go to just one little group or one committee that picks the teams," Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said. "I think it's way too important. The more people you have involved, probably the better."

Oregon coach Chip Kelly pointed out that if there was a final four in place last fall, then Stanford would have been in and his Ducks would have been out, despite their decisive win in Palo Alto. The biggest reason for that? Oregon lost to LSU in the season-opener, giving it one more defeat than Stanford. If the Ducks had played San Jose State, they almost certainly would have finished fourth.

"There seems like there are a lot of questions that still need to be answered before anybody can say, 'Hey, that's a great idea,'" Kelly said.

Therein lies the caution. And the defiance. There was a clear undercurrent with Scott, the coaches and athletic directors that they didn't want to be pushed into anything, particularly when the Pac-12 (and Big Ten) are being asked to sacrifice something -- their tie to the Rose Bowl -- while other conferences aren't. There's a widespread perception that the BCS standings favored an SEC way of doing things, and played a role in that conference's recent dominance. So how does it help the Pac-12 if the new format still relies on a BCS-like evaluation?

There's a concern that if, say, Oregon and Alabama both finish 11-1 that the Crimson Tide would benefit from a "just because" edge, one based entirely on a subjective judgment of SEC superiority. Such a judgment could give the SEC a near-annual second team in a final four while knocking the Pac-12 -- and other major conferences -- out entirely.

"I think a lot of people are going to want the human element out of it, because it would be hard for humans to make those decisions and not be biased in some way," USC coach Lane Kiffin said.

Which is why some, such as Whittingham, favor an expanded playoff.

"From my perspective, you can take it out of the hands of voting and more to on-field performance," he said.

Said Leach, "I'd like to see it more than four. My suspicion is eventually there will be. Because, five years ago, if somebody had said this was going to happen, the room would have started laughing."

Meetings here were long, and there were plenty of other topics, from officiating, to bowls, to scheduling. But the back-and-forth on the potential new playoff scenarios was the centerpiece of the week, at least in terms of intrigue.

Change is coming. That's almost certain. But the process this summer of putting together a concrete plan among entities with competing agendas figures to be contentious.

Said Washington coach Steve Sarkisian, "I think there are still a lot of conversations to go."

In 2014, we will crown a college football national champion in a different way for the first time since 1997. How we might do that -- and how college football divides the substantial spoils -- remains a matter of intense, amorphous speculation.

But BCS executive director Bill Hancock laid down the biggest revelation coming out of the BCS meetings in Hollywood, Fla., on Wednesday: "I can officially say that the status quo is off the table."

So the pure BCS rankings model is dead. Long live... what?


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Chris Williams/Icon SMIPac-12 commissioner Larry Scott has a lot to consider when discussing a new postseason plan.
Deciding to change is one thing. Then you have to come up with a plan, and there are lots of options before -- and lots of agendas among -- the 11 FBS commissioners.

The consensus among reporters with "sources" rates a four-team playoff with semifinals at neutral sites, perhaps even the existing BCS bowls, as the leading plan. The national title game then could be put out for bid. And it would be very valuable.

But even that seemingly simple plan is fraught with issues. Chief among them for the Pac-12 and Big Ten: What about the Rose Bowl?

Beyond that: How do you select the teams? Will the BCS standings be tweaked -- again -- and used? Or what about a selection committee? What about bias issues? Will only conference champions be eligible? After you select the teams, how do you seed them? And then how do you decide who plays where?

And, when all of that heavy lifting is complete, how do you divide the billions? Do the Conferences Formerly Known as the AQ Conferences keep a lion's share of the loot? Or should there be more equity?

Know that the conference commissioners are not all on the same page. CBS Sports' Brett McMurphy does a good job of showing how Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott and SEC commissioner Mike Slive agree on very little. For example:


Scott said if a four-team playoff is chosen, the selection of the four teams needs to be "more credible, a more objective, fair system that balances strength of schedule.

"We don't all play over the same course," Scott said. "We play a different caliber ... some play nine conference games, some eight. Some play stronger out-of-conference competition, some tend to not. They just want to get home games."

Scott didn't say which conference he was referring to, but he didn't have to -- their initials are S-E-C.


What's important for the commissioners not named Slive is to not allow the SEC to dictate terms, particularly to introduce a system that will cultivate a "just because" feeling that the SEC should always will be in the Final Four -- often with two teams.

Wimpy scheduling needs to be addressed, including finding ways to circumvent misleading measures of "strength of schedule." And, yes, Scott is well aware that a significant part of the SEC's rise is PR and fan passion, not just quality play. He knows that would be in play with a selection committee.

Just imagine how contentious and controversial this could be.

Imagine, for one, if Oregon were ranked No. 4 in the AP poll and by the vast majority of other polls -- coaches, Sagarin, computer, etc. -- but was bypassed by a selection committee for a second SEC team. My feeling, and I could be wrong, is that would bother some folks in Eugene. And the Pac-12 offices.

What if Boise State is the only unbeaten team but many think four one-loss teams from major conferences are much better? Or what if there are four unbeaten teams but an 11-1 team played a much tougher schedule? And will a selection committee worry about which teams would generate better ratings -- say Ohio State over Oklahoma State -- and therefore better revenue.

All these potentially contentious scenarios, of course, mean a HUGE political element will exist if there is some sort of committee. Conference offices will be forced to mobilize on talking points supporting their lead team. As a writer covering college football, it seems like potentially great fun but not necessarily like a system fans won't immediately start lambasting.

You know: Like they do the BCS.

Any committee -- or selection process -- will have to explain itself fully and how it made distinctions: "Yes, everyone else ranked Oregon No. 4, but we think Arkansas is better!"

Good luck with that.

When will we have an endgame? Not this week. The goal this week is to come up with two or three legitimate plans. Those will be put before the NCAA Presidential Oversight Committee. A decision should then be announced in early July.

More reading on this;
• Andy Staples breaks things down.
• In some ways, writes Pat Forde, this is a victory -- again -- for the SEC and Slive.
• It would seem the Rose Bowl is on board with change, mostly because there's really no choice. But it is a divisive issue.
• Roadblocks still remain.

The Pac-12 blog's official stance on the Rose Bowl: It's awesome. Has been since 1902. If you've ever been to one, you are nodding.

If you are not nodding, you are either ignorant of the Rose Bowl experience or are untroubled by being wrong. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Our position on this is unambiguous. When the BCS power brokers meet in Hollywood, Fla., this week with the intention of transforming the college football postseason, the Rose Bowl must be given special status. Why? If you were to request a list from the sports' cognoscenti on the greatest traditions in college football, most would rate the Rose Bowl No. 1.

Some ACC, Big 12 and SEC fans might be shrugging. Their conferences don't play in the Rose Bowl, other than in a couple of BCS-mandated exceptional cases. Why should they care?

Well, I don't live in Egypt, but I care about the pyramids. We're talking about history, folks, about tradition, about maintaining a connection to the past. If our postseason endgame somehow ends the Rose Bowl, it would be like knocking down the Washington Monument because we feel like we can build a bigger and better pointy thing in our nation's capital.

We know that one of the four options that will be discussed -- as first reported by USA Today -- is the "Four Teams Plus" plan. It would make the Rose Bowl an automatic part of a "playoff" that would determine the national champion.

The four highest-ranked teams at the end of the regular season would meet in semifinals unless the Big Ten or Pac-12 champion, or both, were among the top four. Those leagues' teams still would meet in the Rose, and the next highest-ranked team or teams would slide into the semis. The national championship finalists would be selected after those three games.

This plan has been widely ridiculed, and for good reason. It's ridiculous. It continues to add subjectivity to the process instead of having more decided on the field of play. That's what we are trying to get rid of.

As I've said before, it doesn't seem that complicated to have a four-team playoff set, then let the Rose Bowl choose next, likely the best available teams from the Pac-12 and Big Ten.

Why should the Rose Bowl get priority? Because it's the Rose Bowl.

Should there be flexibility to the Big Ten-Pac-12 matchup? Perhaps. It's already happened without great loss of life (though there has been a bit of wincing, particularly one year in Berkeley). It might be unavoidable. The game itself, however, is the most sacred relic.

The hope here is this won't end up being only a Jim Delany and Larry Scott crusade. The Big Ten and Pac-12 commissioners obviously have the most at stake among all the pooh-bahs in Florida, but there's no reason for SEC don Mike Slive et al to go all Sun Tzu on the Rose Bowl just to score an Art of War point.

It would be great if Slive et al would take the high-grounded position and recognize the Rose Bowl's special status in college football.

There will be a lot of smart folks in Florida. Let's hope they are smart enough not to drive a carelessly placed wingtip into the game they are charged with protecting.

There are two priorities above all others as college football pooh-bahs try to restructure the college football postseason: 1. Create a better system -- read: quasi-playoff -- to select a national champion; 2. Preserve the Rose Bowl.

No. 2 is controversial.

Why? Because the Pac-12 and Big Ten play in the Rose Bowl. The other BCS conferences' champions are connected to great-but-less-great BCS bowls. So guess who wants to preserve the greatest event and asset in college football history? And who doesn't?

One of the four options that will be discussed -- as first reported by USA Today -- during the BCS meetings on April 24-26 in Hollywood, Fla., is the "Four Teams Plus" plan. It makes the Rose Bowl an automatic part of a "playoff" that would determine the national champion.

The four highest-ranked teams at the end of the regular season would meet in semifinals unless the Big Ten or Pac-12 champion, or both, were among the top four. Those leagues' teams still would meet in the Rose, and the next highest-ranked team or teams would slide into the semis. The national championship finalists would be selected after those three games.

This week SEC commissioner Mike Slive volunteered that this plan, "is not one of my favorites." A completely understandable position, too.

The biggest reason for this is simple: The SEC doesn't have a contract with the Rose Bowl. You'd guess the ACC and Big 12 have similar feelings. Meanwhile, folks over in Big Ten and Pac-12 country feel differently.

My incredibly bright, prolific and downright lovable colleagues, Adam Rittenberg in the Big Ten blog and Chris "I can't see you from behind the SEC's six crystal footballs stacked in front of me" Low of the SEC, both opined this week that this "Four Teams Plus" plan is unworkable, agreeing with Slive. You can read Rittenberg here and Low here.

I mostly agree, in large part because the "Four Teams Plus" plan, when you get down to it, is ridiculous. What it does is -- again -- set up a plan where an ultimate judgment on the two teams playing for the national title won't be decided on the field. You would have two so-called semifinal winners and a Rose Bowl winner and then you'd need a subjective system to pick two of the three.

Anyone think that might get controversial?

That said: Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany need to make something clear in Florida: The Rose Bowl must endure. Period. Then we talk playoff. Or we walk.

That might ruffle some custom-tailored pinstripe suits, but it rests on a great truth that everyone in the room needs to acknowledge: The Rose Bowl is special. No other bowl matches it in terms of history or pageantry. It is the greatest tradition in all of college football. End of story. To not admit this truth is to be ignorant or disingenuous.

How this gets done, I'll mostly leave it up to the Big Brains meeting in Florida. To me, it doesn't seem that complicated to have a four-team playoff set, then let the Rose Bowl choose next, likely the best available teams from the Pac-12 and Big Ten.

It seems very likely the college football postseason will be different in 2014. And it's likely the adopted changes will -- again -- be controversial. A perfect system doesn't exist.

But Scott and Delany should not back down on the Rose Bowl. That's what's best for college football.

Say what you will about how it all ended, but this much is certain about Bobby Petrino’s tenure in Arkansas: He meant victories and money during his four years there.

From former coach Houston Nutt’s final season in 2007 to the 2010 season under Petrino, the Razorbacks saw donations to the football program rise a whopping 359 percent, with a more than 80 percent growth from 2009-10 to 2010-11, to $15.4 million. No other SEC school saw such growth in that time period: Auburn’s donations increased by 15 percent, while Florida saw a 9.7 percent increase. Georgia came in lower at 3.9 percent, and LSU saw donations decrease by more than 13 percent.

The figures come from data each university provides to the NCAA, and while it’s important to note that every athletic department handles donations differently -- some schools only take what they need each year from their fund-raising pots -- there’s no arguing Arkansas has seen a huge influx of cash during Petrino’s tenure.

Football revenue overall rose by 54 percent during Petrino’s first three years, to $61.1 million. Auburn, which won a national title during that time period, saw a 30 percent increase. LSU’s revenue growth came in at 13 percent to $69.1 million.

Petrino, who was in the middle of a seven-year contract under which his salary averaged $3.53 million, put teams on the field that had fan-friendly high-powered offenses.

“Under Petrino, the team averaged 94 percent capacity for home games. It was only 91 percent under [Houston] Nutt,” said Scott Prather, one of the founders of Coaches by the Numbers, a website dedicated to gathering statistical data on football coaches. “If you figure each ticket at an average of $50 per ticket, that’s nearly $600,000 per year.”

Petrino’s last two teams won 81 percent of their games, the best two-year record for any Razorback coach since 1988-89 under Ken Hatfield. In his Tuesday press conference announcing Petrino’s firing, Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long acknowledged he has a tough road ahead as he searches for a new football coach.

“It's a difficult time of year to be searching for a head football coach, no question,” said Long.

Replacing a successful coach is also potentially difficult timing for the athletic department, which broke ground on a new football complex last fall as part of a comprehensive athletic facilities master plan for many sports. The master plan, which aims to be funded solely by private donations, is estimated to cost up to $327 million at full completion.

Heather Collart, a former athletics administrator who now works for the Detroit Pistons, said the loss of an administrator or coach can have a definite impact on donations and capital campaigns.

“While talent reigns supreme within athletics, the personality of leadership has a stronger tie than most people realize to donors, alumni and especially former student-athletes,” said Collart.

The message from the university will be key in the next weeks several weeks, she said.

“Boosters will always question difficult decisions, especially when it results in the loss of a figurehead who had an enduring personality or winning record -- however if you can point to a long-standing process that holds a mission statement as gospel, boosters will come to accept the decision much more quickly and in most cases will remain loyal to a program.”

The Pac-12 is the conference of quarterbacks. The SEC is all about defense.

Oh, and winning national championships.

But as good as the defenses are in the SEC, what role does poor-to-middling offense play in that perception? As in, what would happen if those defenses played against a series of future NFL quarterbacks, as Pac-12 (and Big 12) defenses do?

The question before us is this: How would USC quarterback Matt Barkley do against those rough-tough SEC defenses?

Ted Miller: It’s sort of a chicken and the egg question. Are SEC defenses so good because they rarely play against A-list quarterbacks? Or do Pac-12 quarterbacks pile up eye-popping numbers because they don’t play against SEC defenses?

Is it more notable that four of the top 11 quarterbacks in the nation in terms of passing efficiency in 2011 were from the Pac-12, compared to none in the top 20 from the SEC? Or is it more important that six SEC defenses ranked in the top 17 in pass efficiency defense compared to zero for the Pac-12?

It’s hard to say. It’s likely a person’s home -- Los Angeles or Baton Rouge -- has a large influence on his or her opinion.

Pac-12 fans would be prone to point out: In 2005, LSU ranked No. 3 in the nation in passing efficiency defense. But in the Tigers' trip to Tempe that season, Arizona State’s Sam Keller completed 35 of 56 passes for 461 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions in a 35-31 defeat.

Or this: LSU’s defense did a nice job against Oregon’s offense in the 2011 season opener. Of course, the Ducks scored more points on LSU than ANY OF THE OTHER 13 TEAMS LSU PLAYED.

Apologies for the caps lock. Reckless typing.

While we can all acknowledge the SEC -- at least the elite teams -- play better defense than the rest of the nation, it is also worth noting that when future first-round NFL draft picks played quarterback in the SEC, they put up good numbers, whether we’re talking about the Manning brothers, Matt Stafford or Cam Newton. And I’m sure, one day in the future --perhaps this decade! -- we’ll be able to add a name to that list.

There are some nice quartebacks in the SEC: Tyler Wilson, AJ McCarron and Aaron Murray. All three seem like they’d have a good chance of winning the backup job at USC. Maybe.

Chris Low: No way am I going to argue that Barkley wouldn't have success in the SEC.

He's a future pro and probably the front-runner to win the Heisman Trophy in 2012.

The question is: How much success would he have, and would he hit the proverbial wall going against SEC defenses on a weekly basis?

My feeling is that all quarterbacks hit that wall. Any coach will tell you (ask your buddy Lane Kiffin) that what separates SEC defenses is the speed in the front seven, particularly in the defensive line. There are fast players all over the country in college football, but the SEC has cornered the market on fast, explosive defensive linemen and pass-rushers who also have the size and strength to overpower people.

That's the difference, and that's where Barkley would notice the greatest difference.

It wasn't a banner year for quarterbacks in the SEC last season. And, yes, I realize that's an understatement. But it was a banner year for premier defensive players. That's why the first round of the NFL draft next month is going to look like an SEC who's who. As many as 10 SEC defensive players could go in the first round.

Don't sleep on the SEC's quarterback class this coming season, either. Wilson may be a future first-rounder. Murray has thrown nearly 60 touchdown passes in his first two seasons, and we all saw what McCarron did in the BCS title game against an LSU defense that was outstanding.

Barkley's a big-time talent, no question. But it's a different game when you're trying to throw from your back.

And in this league, ALL QUARTERBACKS (sorry, my caps tend to lock up, too) encounter that problem.

Ted Miller: Truth is, Wilson, Murray and McCarron are good quarterbacks who look like guys with NFL futures. Loved how McCarron handled the pressure of the title game, and Murray has Pac-12-type talent.

We're trash talking here, but if you can't acknowledge what is real, well, then it's just noise.

And the reality of this debate is this: Barkley would be more challenged on a weekly basis by SEC defenses than by Pac-12 defenses -- which I believe are underrated but still a step behind the SEC for the reasons the Inimitable Low mentioned above. If Barkley played at Vanderbilt, Mississippi State or Kentucky, he'd just be the best quarterback in the history of those programs while leading those teams to "historic" seasons. Like a third-place finish in their divisions.

Yet what makes Barkley, Barkley is not just Barkley. It's USC. It's his supporting cast. It's receivers Robert Woods and Marqise Lee, who will both have NFL careers. And two tight ends who will also. And a good offensive line, and a 1,000-yard rusher who averaged 6.9 yards per carry in 2011 (Curtis McNeal).

By the way, if you wonder where USC's true potential Achilles heel is this year, it's the defensive line. The Trojans have three A-listers -- guys who would be touted in the SEC -- but are thin thereafter. That's a problem for a team that views itself as a national title contender.

That's ultimately the rub here, too. If all goes according to plan, Barkley and USC should be in position to play for the national title. It's hard to imagine that wouldn't be against another SEC team.

Now, Chris, wouldn't it be fun if it were USC and LSU? Recall that in 2003, LSU won 1/16 of the national title when no one in the entire world thought LSU was better than USC, other than computers obviously loaded with all sorts of viruses.

Or USC-Alabama? Great history, and Saban versus Barkley & Co. would certainly attract plenty of eyeballs.

Chris Low: One of the most compelling things that could happen to college football next season would be for USC and Barkley to take their shot at an SEC defense in the money game.

Then, we could quit debating and let it play out on the field. As much as I knew that Alabama and LSU were the two best teams in the country last season, there was a part of me that wanted to see Oklahoma State against either the Alabama or LSU defense in the BCS title game.

It's the matchup we all want to see: A high-powered offense versus a suffocating defense.

Maybe that's what we'll be treated to this fall.

Of course, I go back to the 2010 national title game, and Oregon had been short-circuiting scoreboards all season long. The Ducks go up against an Auburn defense that had been opportunistic, but wasn't one of the best in the SEC that season statistically. But in that game, Auburn put the clamps on Oregon and won 22-19.

The Tigers won because the Ducks couldn't block Nick Fairley.

And that's what the Trojans would run into if they find themselves up against an SEC team next January in Miami.

It won't come down to Barkley. Sure, he'll make a few plays. He's legit. But what it will come down to is the group of guys blocking for Barkley, and that's where it always gets ugly against SEC defenses.

In the meantime, just make sure the Trojans get there. They've been known to stumble along the way, and what we're left with is a bunch of hollow chatter about what they would have done (or could have done) had they made it to the party.

We'll check the guest list in December and chat again then.

Oregon coach Chip Kelly was baffled in a phone interview before the Rose Bowl. How the heck could little-old-him be important to a reporter?

"The big story," he said conspiratorially,"is all these new coaches."

Well, it's the big story now as the Pac-12 turns its attention away from the 2011 season and toward 2012 spring practices. And, of course, Kelly is part of a reason there are four new coaches in the conference. Mike Stoops, Dennis Erickson, Rick Neuheisel and Paul Wulff -- fired at Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA and Washington State, respectively -- never beat Kelly and, in fact, came within double digits of his Ducks only once (Arizona, with a 44-41 loss in 2009).

But the story isn't just four new coaches. It's four new coaches whom folks have heard of, each of whom is getting a big-boy salary that would fit in among the SEC or Big Ten. Big salaries are the new normal in the Pac-12 after the conference signed a $3 billion TV deal with ESPN and Fox.

So out goes Stoops and his $1,456,000 salary, and in comes Rich Rodriguez and his $1,910,000 paycheck. Out goes Erickson and his $1,503,000 salary, and in comes Todd Graham and his $2 million tab. Out goes Neuheisel and his $1,285,000 salary, and in comes Jim Mora and his $2.4 million annual take. Out goes Wulff and his $600,000 salary, and in comes Mike Leach and his $2,250,000 price tag.

The chief idea is obvious: Pac-12 schools are paying for an upgrade in coaching talent, and there are high expectations for getting their money's worth. And, by the way, there's an added bonus for each hire: Each new coach has a chip on his shoulder and something to prove.

• In 2010, Rodriguez was ingloriously dispatched at Michigan after three tumultuous and unsuccessful years. Athletic director Greg Byrne is betting that Rodriguez is far closer to the highly successful coach he was at West Virginia than the one who got run out of Ann Arbor, and Rodriguez surely wants that impression to be his legacy. It helps that he got his man, Jeff Casteel, to run the Wildcats' defense, which he failed to do at Michigan.
• Graham took a lot of heat from a pandering, sanctimonious media and a whiny Pittsburgh fan base for how he left the Panthers. "He didn't even say goodbye," they collectively sobbed. "Waaah." Of course, Graham does have an unfortunate habit of describing every job as his "dream job." All that stuff is mostly hogwash, though. What matters is winning, and if Graham does that, the media will all come down en masse to Tempe pretending they didn't trash Graham's character for taking a better job, in a better conference, in a better place to live while making his family happy in the process.
• Mora was fired in 2009 after only one season with the Seattle Seahawks, and he's bided his time looking for another head-coaching job. Seeing that he was two or three names down UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero's coaching list -- Chris Petersen! Kevin Sumlin! -- some Bruins fans reacted with disappointed smirks to Mora's hiring. Then Mora hired an outstanding staff. Then he reeled in an outstanding recruiting class. Some of those frowns are turning upside down.
• Leach was fired at Texas Tech in 2009. He's one of the best offensive minds in the nation, and the almost universal reaction is athletic director Bill Moos hit a home run with this big-name hire. The Pirate Captain looks like the perfect match for Pullman and the Cougs, and he'll be plenty motivated to prove his critics wrong and erase the bad ending in Lubbock.

It's fair to say these four hirings have generated positive momentum for these programs, though, of course, to varying degrees. There's a hope among the fan bases that these four can create quick turnarounds.

And that also leads into another major coaching story entering the spring: The Pac-12's most senior coaches, California's Jeff Tedford and Oregon State's Mike Riley, sit on the hottest seats.

Tedford enters his 11th season in Berkeley having followed up his first losing campaign -- 5-7 in 2010 -- with a middling 7-6 finish in 2011. Riley, the man deserving the most credit for making one of the worst programs in college football respectable, enters his 12th year in Corvallis -- two tenures wrapped around an ill-fated stint with the San Diego Chargers -- burdened by consecutive losing seasons, including a 3-9 finish that felt so 1987.

Spring practices for Tedford and Riley will be about setting up turnaround season that give their frustrated fan bases hope -- and keep their athletic directors from issuing dreaded votes of confidence while checking their coaching Rolodexes.

Meanwhile, Kelly and USC's Lane Kiffin, still relative coaching newbies in the conference, enter spring likely trying to tone down the positive hype. Both will begin the 2012 season ranked in the top 10. USC could be preseason No. 1. Both are overwhelming favorites in the North and South Divisions. And their meeting on Nov. 3 in L.A. could have national title implications.

But that's looking ahead.

The big story this spring in the Pac-12 is newness and rebirth. One-third of the conference's teams hope that newness at the top of their programs will create a rebirth in the Pac-12 standings.

The question from the home office in Bristol: When will the SEC reign end?

The short answer is next January when the winner of the Pac-12 championship -- USC or Oregon (or is it Oregon or USC?) -- stomps a bootprint on LSU's forehead in South Florida.

The long answer is, well, it's not going to end. And there are specific, proven reasons for this. They are the same reasons the SEC became dominant.

Money and real estate.

The SEC is the richest conference, although the Big Ten certainly gives it a run for the money. Sure, the Pac-12 eclipsed everyone with its latest TV deal, but that was a matter of good timing. Just wait until the SEC gets a new deal. One word: jack-freaking-pot.

It's also about stadium size and fan passion. The SEC has the first, and those over-brimming stadiums prove the second. Still, the Big Ten also boasts big stadiums that are full every Saturday.

Real estate pushes the SEC over the top. The Southeast is loaded with prep talent, and there is a passion for high school football that pushes the best athletes onto the gridiron -- instead of the hardwood. The addition of Texas A&M will only boost that fertile recruiting footprint, by the way.

Want to know where all the good Pac-12 linemen are? Wasting their time playing basketball. What does that mean? If you live on the West Coast, go to a high school hoops game this weekend. That 6-foot-5 guy playing center? He doesn't play football. He tried it in seventh grade. It was too hard. In the Southeast, the social forces would say: "Son, get your butt onto the football field." On the West Coast, the social forces say, "Hey, do what you want."

Perhaps the West Coast social forces are better. Live and let live, right? But guess what? That 6-foot-5 guy playing center would have a lot better shot at a free education at a Pac-12 school if he played football.

So the bottom line is the SEC has the money, which pays the best coaches and builds the best facilities. It has the workforce, the high school football talent in the Southeast. And it has the culture: Football is the unchallenged king in the South.

Eventually, perhaps next season, another conference is going to win the BCS national title. But the likelihood, at least in the foreseeable future, is the SEC will continue to win national championships at a higher rate than any other conference.

Of course, next season, Oregon or USC is going to open up a can of whup-butt on the SEC in the title game. So the Pac-12 has that going for it.

After six consecutive national titles, it's clear the path to the national championship goes through the SEC. But ESPN's Brock Huard believes he's found the team to break the string.

USC.

Huard lists five reasons: 1. The abundance of talent; 2. The level of production; 3. The surroundings and the schedule; 4. The improving defense; 5. The Barkley factor.

USC's case is strong and Huard makes it. No team will approach the top-level skill talent the Trojans have on offense with QB Matt Barkley, WRs Robert Woods and Marqise Lee and RB Curtis McNeal. There are NFL teams that would trade with USC straight up with those four spots. And you probably could throw in the tight end combination of Xavier Grimble and Randall Telfer, too.

Yes, the defense, with eight starters back, should take a step from solid to good in 2012. And, yes, the schedule sets up well, with both Notre Dame and Oregon coming to the Coliseum.

But there is one major issue: depth. The sort of players USC recruits don't like to think of themselves as "depth," which is why they often leave when it's clear they are backups or reserves. The latest is WR Kyle Prater, a once-touted recruit who fell behind due to injuries and being less good than his recruiting pedigree. The Trojans previously lost RB Amir Carlisle, who's transferring to Notre Dame, and RB Dillon Baxter, who fell afoul of coach Lane Kiffin. It also appears that WR Brice Butler is leaving.

The point: Things are thin behind Woods, Lee and McNeal. And they are even more worrisome on the lines. Sure, the Trojans welcome back four starters on the offensive line but there's a significant step back on the second team. Further, the defensive line is replacing three starters, though the depth there is better.

The most important thing for USC next fall is simple: staying healthy. The Trojans' likely starting 22 as it stands today will be a tough match for any team, SEC or otherwise. But the difference between the 2012 Trojans and, say, the 2004 version, is a lack of A-list depth.

USC is a almost certain preseason top-five team in 2012, along with LSU, Alabama, Oregon and probably Oklahoma. And if things fall into place, we might finally have that USC versus the SEC national title game we've been lacking in the BCS era, for whatever reason.

Of course, Oregon fans might have some thoughts on this.

The retail market for licensed collegiate apparel is, quite simply, a behemoth of a business that brings in about $4.3 billion annually.

Seemingly everyone wants a piece of it, which is why so many people at so many major events hawk items of all shapes, types and sizes -- whether the items are legitimately made and licensed or counterfeit.

Vendors selling counterfeit goods mixed right in with legitimate vendors at the SEC Championship game in December in Atlanta. They did it at the Rose Bowl, too. And they’ll do it again Monday night at the 2012 Allstate BCS National Championship Game.

Last year, more than 60,000 pieces of counterfeit merchandise valued at more than $1 million overall were seized by Collegiate Licensing Company. While CLC represents nearly 200 colleges, universities, bowl games, athletic conferences, the Heisman Trophy and the NCAA, it’s not the only licensing agency around; Learfield Sports, Licensing Resource Group, and Silver Star Merchandising represent collegiate properties in their licensing efforts as well.

At the 2011 SEC championship Game, CLC took possession of 1,012 pieces of unlicensed product with an estimated retail value of more than $15,000. That’s up from 2010, when 541 pieces of unlicensed produced were seized or voluntarily surrendered by vendors. More than twice that many products were seized last January at the Rose Bowl by CLC.

CLC officials said that on average, nearly 5,000 counterfeit items, from T-shirts to hats to bracelets, are seized outside the host stadium of the BCS title game each year.

Some of the items are obvious: In December in Atlanta, a roaming vendor on Mangum Street south of the Georgia Dome peddled T-shirts, gold letters emblazoned on purple reading: “BATON [expletive] ROUGE.” The back of the shirt warned: “IF YOU DON’T BLEED PURPLE AND GOLD TAKE YOUR [double expletive] HOME!”

Most people wouldn’t consider such a shirt an officially licensed product of Louisiana State University because of the vulgar language. But another vendor sold shirts proclaiming a “2011 SEC Championship Showdown” and featured the trademarked logos for LSU and Georgia. Few buyers would be able to determine the shirts were counterfeit.

CLC investigators team with local police at major events and seize such material, give citations to the vendors or arrest them. Companies like CLC conduct such enforcement activities because federal law requires trademark owners to “police” their mark. Trademark law is largely enforced through private lawsuits, although there are also criminal penalties for counterfeiting goods. Failure to police a mark by attempting to prevent infringing uses can result in a loss of protection for a trademark.

The most clear-cut violations by vendors are those involving the use of trademarks that are registered at the state or federal level. Trademarks include more than just the university, conference or BCS logo. For example, University of Georgia lists the following trademarks: “Georgia,” “University of Georgia,” “Georgia Bulldogs,” “Bulldogs,” “Dawgs,” “UGA,” “University of Georgia Athletic Association,” “Between The Hedges,” “How Bout Them Dogs,” “Go You Silver Britches,” “Hairy Dawg,” the oval “G” mark and many others.

In addition to registered trademarks at the state or federal level, universities can also claim common law rights to marks or wording typically associated with the university.

In 2008, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision by a Louisiana federal district court against Smack Apparel for intentional trademark infringement based on its use of school colors in combination with other designs and words that made it apparent the references were designed to associate with a particular school. For example, one shirt featured the following: “Got Seven?” “We do! 7 Time National Champs.” The shirt included a depiction of the state of Ohio and a marker noting Columbus, Ohio, on the back. The court decided the shirt referred to the seven college football national titles claimed by Ohio State University.

The court ruled that the schools involved in the suit owned trademark rights in their color schemes and that combined with other indicia on the various shirts, such as the reference to Ohio State’s location in Columbus and national titles in the example above, trademark infringement had occurred, even without use of the school name or logo.

So, who are these vendors?

One of them cited in Atlanta was the man selling the shirts with the expletives. He said he planned to keep $8 of the $20 shirt cost, with $12 going to his boss. He expected to make $1,500 to $2,000 that day before he was stopped by CLC investigators and Atlanta police for vending without a permit.

The man said he was based out of Cleveland but traveled nearly every weekend for major sporting events. He said he worked for a company named Street Talk Tees, which is registered as a business in Ohio for “novelty tees and apparel.” The vendor said his company employs about 30 people who travel to events -- two others also worked the SEC game.

Requests for comment from Street Talk were not answered.

CLC says buyers have a few ways to determine the authenticity of their purchases:

•  Look for an “Officially Licensed Collegiate Products” hologram on the product or hangtag.

•  Consider taste of the product, as distasteful designs are not approved by trademark holders.

•  A torn or missing tag usually is evidence of a second-hand garment.

•  The name of the manufacturer will be on the product somewhere, either in the form of a hangtag, a neck label, or screen-printed directly.

•  All merchandise should have appropriate trademark designations next to a specific name or design.

Why be so conscientious when you buy collegiate merchandise? Each year, universities depend on millions of dollars in royalties to fund athletic programs and other university initiatives. For example, the University of Florida showed more than $6 million in licensing revenue on its audited financial statement for 2010-11, with just $40,000 of that going to CLC in marketing fees.

Ohio State budgeted for $3.5 million in licensing revenue for 2011-12 and projects $1.58 million of that will move from the athletic department to the university, to be used for academic programming and scholarships.

Do you believe in the primacy of returning starters for determining preseason pecking order? Well, if so, you'll enjoy this effort from College Football Matrix, which has broken down returning starers by conference for all FBS teams.

While measuring returning starters is an inexact science -- the common way is at least five starts the previous season -- the list is revealing. And it suggests that the SEC and Big 12, the two best conferences in 2011, will again thrive in 2012.

Big 12 teams average 17 returning starters, tops in the nation. The SEC averages 16.7. The Pac-12 is last among AQ conferences with just 13.8.

The Big 12, big on offense, has the most coming back on offense: 7.9. And the SEC, big on defense, has 7.6 coming back on defense.

The good news is nine of 12 Pac-12 quarterbacks are coming back, including USC's Matt Barkley, though that number falls to eight if Arizona State's Brock Osweiler opts to enter the NFL draft a year early.

Be forewarned: There is some imprecision on this list. It says Colorado's quarterback is returning; Tyler Hansen is not. And it lists Washington State as having just seven returning starters; by my count, the Cougars welcome back 18. So that was a miscalculation. I went through every Pac-12 team, and you could quibble the numbers a handful of times, so the numbers aren't absolute.

Here's my tally (* means quarterback coming back). It averages out to 14.8 starters returning for the conference. Keep in mind it doesn't including returning starters who were hurt this season, such as Arizona State linebacker Brandon Magee, and does include players who still might announce for the NFL draft, such as Osweiler, Oregon running back LaMichael James and Washington running back Chris Polk.

Arizona (12)
Offense: 6
Defense: 6
specialists: 0

Arizona State (11*)
Offense: 5
Defense: 4
specialists: 2

California (11*)
Offense: 6
Defense: 5
specialists: 0

Colorado (13)
Offense: 4
Defense: 7
specialists: 2

Oregon (16*)
Offense: 7
Defense: 7
specialists: 2

Oregon State (17*)
Offense: 8
Defense: 8
specialists: 1

Stanford (12)
Offense: 5
Defense: 6
specialists: 1

UCLA (16*)
Offense: 8
Defense: 7
specialists: 1

USC (19*)
Offense: 9
Defense: 8
specialists: 2

Utah (18*)
Offense: 9
Defense: 7
specialists: 2

Washington (15*)
Offense: 8
Defense: 7
specialists: 0

Washington State (18*)
Offense: 8
Defense: 9
specialists: 1

The 2011-12 bowl season hasn’t been a gem in terms of attendance, even with four games yet to play. Nearly 3 percent fewer people -- 42,959 -- have attended games this season than last year.

Yet college football profits topped $1 billion last year, attendance during the regular season increased for the fourth time in five years last year, and big matchups like the LSU-Alabama game this November were huge on TV -- that game alone drew almost 6.5 million more viewers than 2010’s highest-rated matchup. So what gives with the bowl attendance?

Bowl executives list a number of reasons for the decline. Tina Kunzer-Murphy, an ESPN executive who is also executive director of the MAACO Bowl Las Vegas and chairwoman of the Football Bowl Association, says factors include public disenchantment with football’s postseason system, the tough economy and games that feature teams which haven’t been able to draw fans. (ESPN owns seven non-BCS bowl games and the BCS broadcast rights through 2014.)

Seven bowls thus far have seen a decrease in attendance of 10,000 or more from last year. With the exception of the Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl, all have one thing in common: last year’s game featured a team whose campus was less than 300 miles from the bowl. In the cases of the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, Sheraton Hawaii Bowl and Military Bowl Presented by Northrop Grumman, last year’s matchup featured a team within just 10 miles.

After posting its highest attendance ever last year at 48,049 with local team San Diego State University playing, the Poinsettia Bowl saw attendance slashed in half this year with a TCU vs. Louisiana Tech matchup. The Sheraton Hawaii Bowl saw a decline of more than 10,000 this year with its Southern Miss vs. Nevada matchup, with Nevada distributing less than 1,000 tickets to its fans.

The Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl and Outback Bowl each featured a team located less than 300 miles away last year, and each saw at least 11,000 fewer tickets sold this year. The local-school-tie-in anomaly: the Gator Bowl, which despite having a matchup between Urban Meyer’s former team and the team he’ll coach in 2012 -- and the University of Florida’s close proximity to Jacksonville -- the bowl saw a decline of 16,185 fans this year.

Bowls that saw increases of 10,000 or more fans this year similarly saw their fortunes tied to fan base proximity.

The Chick-Fil-A Bowl, which saw its 15th straight sellout in 2011, benefits from its proximity to the fan bases of the ACC and SEC, but that’s not the key to success, says bowl president and CEO Gary Stokan.

“Every bowl has the opportunity if they work diligently to sell tickets to local people and businesses before the teams are announced," he says. Stokan says his bowl sells approximately 38,000 tickets each year before teams are announced, leaving essentially only the team ticket allotments available.

While he says some of the bowl’s success is due to Atlanta being the “capital of college football” and home to the first- or second-largest segment of each ACC and SEC school’s alumni base, he believes the true secret to attendance success is in selling to locals, not waiting until schools are announced to sell to fans.

Will Webb, executive director of the Belk Bowl in Charlotte, says his bowl looks at fan interest level, not only proximity.

He says in addition to attending games and paying close attention to a team’s record for the second half of the season, bowl officials also monitor Internet message boards. A lot of fans calling for a coach’s head? Then the fan base probably isn’t excited enough about a bowl game to pack the house. Last year, Louisville looked like a good choice until the bowl committee noted the Cardinals’ basketball schedule. Officials saw a basketball game against rival Kentucky scheduled for the same time as the bowl game. Needless to say, the bowl passed Louisville.

Kunzer-Murphy echoed some of Webb’s sentiments with regard to the MAACO Las Vegas Bowl. Down to Arizona State or UCLA, bowl officials had to weigh UCLA’s two big losses at the end of the season and firing of head coach Rick Neuheisel. Meanwhile, Arizona State had never been selected for the bowl, had never played in Nevada, and traveling to Las Vegas would be easy.

When asked about potential changes in light of the down attendance this year, each bowl executive had a somewhat different answer, but all were open to change. Kunzer-Murphy believes change is inevitable once conference realignment is settled. Stokan likes a playoff idea that keeps the BCS bowls but also boosts the importance of the other bowls.

Has something seemed odd to you about the BCS bowls this year? Does it seem like ... oh wait, West Virginia just scored again.

Does it seem like ... wait, there goes De'Anthony Thomas. Don't think he'll get caught from behind.

Does it seem like ... wait, would somebody please tackle Justin Blackmon?

Does it seem like there have been a lot of points this bowl season?

It's not just you. There have been a lot of points. More points than ever before. And by huge quantities.

So far, BCS bowl teams have averaged a total of 77 points in the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls. That, folks, is nearly 26 points more than last year (51.6). And it's nearly 11 points better than the previous high of 66.3 from 2001-02.

Perhaps pairing two SEC teams in the title game has created a black hole sucking all defensive stinginess into the LSU-Alabama rematch, which you might recall went 9-6 with no touchdowns in their first meeting. West Virginia scored 10 touchdowns -- 10! -- against Clemson. Alabama gave up 12 TDs all season.

Speaking of Clemson: ACC. Well, well, well.

After the Tigers ingloriously fell 70-33 to the Mountaineers, we got our second story from the BCS bowl season: The ACC's insistence on throwing up on itself in BCS bowl games.

The conference that was once expected to challenge the SEC is now 2-13 in BCS bowl games. That's hard to do. You'd think in 15 BCS bowls the conference could get lucky at least five or six times. But no, it insists on making ACC blogger Heather Dinich, a genuinely nice person, into some sort of Grim Reaper every bowl season.

Heck, the Big East has won seven BCS bowls -- second fewest among AQ conferences -- but it's 7-7.

Of course, this all ties together, and we're here to bring out a bow, but first a warning: If you don't want to read about how good the SEC is for the 56,314th time this year, then stop reading. I'd recommend an episode of "South Park" or perhaps a John le Carré thriller as an alternative for passing the time.

We can all agree the SEC plays great defense right? Alabama and LSU will play for the title Monday with the nation's top-two defenses. Do you think perhaps that it's not a coincidence that the conference that is 16-7 in BCS bowl games plays great defense?

The only other AQ conference with a winning record in BCS bowl games is the Pac-12, which is 11-7. The Pac-12 isn't known for defense, either, but USC was when it won the conference's last national title in 2004.

The only team to win a BCS national title without an elite defense was Auburn in 2010, but the Tigers' defense seemed to find itself late in the season. Since 1999, eight national champions had a top-10 defense. Other than Auburn, the lowest-rated defense to win a BCS national title was Ohio State in 2002. It ranked 23rd in the nation in total defense.

Three of the four BCS bowl games have been thrillers. Two went to overtime. We've seen big plays all over the field in the passing game and running game. Yet, if things go according to script in the title game, we'll see none of that. We might not see more than a couple of plays that go for more than 20 yards. We might not see any.

Some might call that boring. It might seem that both offenses are so paranoid of making a mistake that they are stuck in mud, both in game plan and execution.

But, snoozefest or not, when the clock strikes zero a team from the SEC will hoist the crystal football for a sixth consecutive time.

That might say something about playing better defense.