ESPN College Football

Florida's Aaron Hernandez has been named as one of three finalists for the John Mackey Award, which goes to the top tight end in college football.

The other two finalists are Pittsburgh's Dorin Dickerson and BYU's Dennis Pitta.

Hernandez leads Florida in catches with 46, and he leads all SEC tight ends in receiving yards per game (51.9).

Urban Meyer says he will stay at Florida as long as they will have him.

This we know about the SEC’s chances of playing for a fourth consecutive national championship: There won’t be any wiggle room this season.

If Alabama wins its next two games -- at Auburn and against Florida in the SEC championship game -- the Crimson Tide will head to Pasadena to play for their first national title in 17 years.

If Florida wins its next two games -- home against Florida State and against Alabama in the SEC championship game -- the Gators will head to Pasadena to play for their third national title in the past four years.

There really isn’t an in-between for the two teams. If either slips up this week, they can forget about the BCS National Championship equation.

If they both win this week, the SEC championship game on Dec. 5 becomes a play-in game for the BCS National Championship Game on Jan. 7

Unlike the past three years, it’s highly unlikely that a one-loss SEC champion would be high enough in the polls to finish in the top two of the final BCS standings -- not with the top six teams in the BCS standings this week all unbeaten.

For a one-loss SEC team to have any chance this year, some combination of two teams at the top of the BCS standings would have to lose. For instance, Texas and TCU, or maybe TCU and Cincinnati.

And then you would get into the Boise State factor and whether an unbeaten Boise State team would pass a one-loss SEC champion.

The only race in the SEC has been to see if both Alabama and Florida can make it to Atlanta unbeaten.

The Crimson Tide and Gators both clinched their division titles by the first week of November. There hasn’t been a lot of drama since.

But that drama goes into overdrive on Dec. 5 in the SEC championship game when Alabama and Florida meet for the second straight year.

If they’re both unbeaten, it will be most anticipated championship game yet. This is the seventh time Alabama and Florida have met in the title game since its inception in 1992. The Gators have won four of the previous six.

The order at the top of the SEC power rankings stays the same this week, with Alabama checking in at No. 1 and Florida at No. 2.

After that, it’s a jumbled mess. We could sit here for hours and argue who deserves to be where.

The reality is that there’s not much difference in the No. 3 team and the No. 9 team. In fact, if you'll notice, the No. 9 team beat the No. 3 team on the field earlier this season in Columbia.

Here’s what the pecking order looks like heading into the final weekend of the regular season:

1. Alabama: Nobody expected the Crimson Tide (11-0, 7-0) to break a sweat against Chattanooga, and they didn’t in romping to a 45-0 win. Now it’s on to the Iron Bowl and Auburn. Alabama looks to make it two in a row in this rivalry after snapping a six-game losing streak to the Tigers last season. The Crimson Tide enter the game ranked first nationally in total defense and have given up just three touchdowns in their last six games.

2. Florida: If there’s a defense better in the country than Alabama’s, it might be Florida’s. The Gators (11-0, 8-0) are ranked first nationally in scoring defense after routing Florida International 62-3 last week. They also have to get by a longtime rival, Florida State, to make it to Atlanta unscathed. Playing their fourth game in the last five weeks in the state of Florida, the Gators have never lost to the Seminoles under Urban Meyer.

3. Ole Miss: Here come the streaking Rebels (8-3, 4-3) after back-to-back wins at home over LSU and Tennessee. The latest was a 25-23 thriller over then No. 8 LSU last Saturday, giving Ole Miss at least eight wins in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1989 and 1990. The Rebels can lock up their first trip to play in a Florida bowl in nearly two decades by closing out the regular season with a win over Mississippi State.

4. LSU: This is where it gets impossible to rank the SEC teams this season. The Tigers (8-3, 4-3) have lost two of their last three games, but are still one of the best four or five teams in the league. Their three losses were all close and all decided in the fourth quarter against the three best teams in the league. This can still be a 10-win season for the Tigers if they can take care of business at home this weekend against Arkansas and stay away from another late-game clock management debacle.

5. Arkansas: The Hogs (7-4, 3-4) get a chance to show that they’re for real this Saturday against LSU. They’ve looked the part the last four weeks with four straight wins, and quarterback Ryan Mallett is throwing the ball like a season veteran. The only thing that’s holding this team back right now is a defense that’s been shredded through the air and on the ground. Mississippi State rushed for 231 yards in the second half against the Hogs.

6. Kentucky: The Wildcats (7-4, 3-4) make the biggest jump this week, and why not? They’ve won five of their last six games, including road wins at Georgia and Auburn, and have done so despite a rash of injuries. This has been a team long on resolve and short on excuses this season. It’s already been a solid season in the Bluegrass, but it becomes a memorable season if Kentucky can end a 24-year drought and beat Tennessee at home this Saturday.

7. Tennessee: The Vols (6-5, 3-4) are teetering right now between having a pretty good season and a disappointing season. It all hinges on the game at Kentucky this weekend. The injuries are mounting, but they managed a 31-16 win over Vanderbilt last week. The highlight for Tennessee so far has been playing well in closer than expected losses at Florida and Alabama. The Vols need a quality win on the road to punctuate this season the way they want to.

8. Auburn: The Tigers (7-4, 3-4) were off last week and hold steady at the No. 8 position. Their loss to Georgia two weeks ago looks worse every time the Bulldogs take the field. Auburn has also lost four of its last five SEC games, which explains why the Tigers aren’t ranked a little higher. Of course, they could shoot up into the upper half of the rankings by knocking off Alabama at home on Friday in the Iron Bowl.

9. South Carolina: The Gamecocks (6-5, 3-5) had a week off to get ready for their regular-season finale against Clemson. It’s a chance to stop the bleeding this season and in this series. South Carolina has lost three in a row and is trying to avoid its third straight season-ending collapse. The Gamecocks have also lost 10 of their last 12 meetings with the Tigers, who have turned this rivalry into their own little party.

10. Georgia: When did you ever think you’d see Georgia sliding all the way down to the 10^th spot in this conference? The Bulldogs (6-5, 4-4) self-destructed in the second half against Kentucky, turning the ball over four times and losing 34-27 at home. This is by far the most turbulent storm of Mark Richt’s coaching career at Georgia. The fans want major changes, and they want them now.

11. Mississippi State: The Bulldogs (4-7, 2-5) were eliminated from bowl contention with last week’s 42-21 loss at Arkansas. They can help ease some of the pain by knocking off arch-rival Ole Miss at home this coming weekend in the Egg Bowl. Close losses had tormented Mississippi State for much of this season, but the Bulldogs have lost their last two games by a 73-24 margin.

12. Vanderbilt: It’s all over for Vanderbilt in 2009, and after making so many strides last season with the seven wins and bowl victory, the Commodores (2-10, 0-8) finished winless in the league for the first time since 2002, Bobby Johnson’s first season at Vanderbilt. Injuries and an ineffective offense doomed the Commodores. Only five players started all 12 games.

Barring a bizarre chain of events these last two weeks, the SEC can just about lock in two BCS berths.

The SEC championship game winner between Alabama and Florida is ticketed for the BCS National Championship Game, and the loser will play in the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

Ole Miss has made up the most ground on the bowl front in the past few weeks. The Rebels’ 25-23 win over LSU likely puts them in the Capital One Bowl in Orlando. The Rebels last played in a Florida bowl in 1991 when they lost to Michigan in the Gator Bowl.

Now, if Ole Miss should lose this Saturday to Mississippi State, it may be a more difficult decision for the Capital One, which gets the top choice out of the SEC after the BCS selections are made.

Arkansas is the other hot team in the SEC and has one of the SEC’s hotter players in quarterback Ryan Mallett. The winner of the Arkansas-LSU game this weekend is likely headed to the Cotton Bowl.

Watch Kentucky, too. The Wildcats have a chance to get to 8-4 if they can beat Tennessee, which would almost certainly send the Big Blue to the Outback Bowl.

The Vols could also end up in the Outback Bowl, but could fall to the Autozone Liberty Bowl if they lose to the Wildcats and wind up 6-6.

The bottom line is that nothing that can be written in pen except for Vanderbilt and Mississippi State being eliminated from bowl contention. The other 10 teams are all bowl eligible.

Can you imagine a final weekend of the regular season that included Mississippi State beating Ole Miss, South Carolina beating Clemson, Kentucky beating Tennessee, Georgia beating Georgia Tech and either Alabama or Florida losing?

Stay tuned, because it never ends up like you think it will.

Here’s the way I see the bowl lineup shaking out heading into the final weekend of the regular season:

• BCS National Championship Game: Alabama vs. BCS team
• Allstate Sugar Bowl: Florida vs. BCS team
• Capital One Bowl: Ole Miss vs. Big Ten team
• Outback Bowl: Tennessee vs. Big Ten team
• AT&T Cotton Bowl: LSU vs. Big 12 team
• Chick-fil-A Bowl: Kentucky vs. ACC team
• Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl: Auburn vs. ACC team
• Autozone Liberty Bowl: Arkansas vs. Conference USA team
• Advocare Independence Bowl: South Carolina vs. Big 12 team
• Papajohns.com Bowl: Georgia vs. Big East team

We’re down to this: One more week of football remaining to determine if Alabama and Florida will meet in the SEC championship game as unbeaten teams.

The Crimson Tide and Gators are coming off “scrimmages” and should be rested for their big rivalry games this weekend.

Ole Miss seems to be getting hot at just the right time for the second straight season. They’re just plain hot in Georgia after the Bulldogs’ 34-27 home loss to Kentucky, and who knows what they’re thinking on the Bayou after one of the worst mismanagements of a late-game clock situation by LSU in recent SEC history?

Here’s a look at what we learned in the SEC in Week 12:

1. Running backs galore: It’s been a while since the SEC had this many good running backs putting up these kind of numbers in the same season. Picking the top two for first-team All-SEC honors is going to be a chore. Five guys can stake a claim. Alabama’s Mark Ingram has 1,399 rushing yards, averages 6.8 yards per carry and has 15 touchdowns. Mississippi State’s Anthony Dixon has 1,258 rushing yards, averages 5.5 yards per carry and has 11 touchdowns. Auburn’s Ben Tate has 1,209 rushing yards, averages 5.4 yards per carry and has eight touchdowns. Tennessee’s Montario Hardesty has 1,127 rushing yards, averages 5 yards per carry and has 10 touchdowns. Ole Miss’ Dexter McCluster has 903 rushing yards, averages 6.9 yards per carry and has nine touchdowns. McCluster also has 412 receiving yards. How do you pick just two?

2. It’s a Big Blue world: If Kentucky does this coming Saturday what it’s failed to do every year since 1984 – and that’s beat Tennessee – the SEC Coach of the Year award this season should take its rightful place in Lexington, Ky. The more you watch this team play, the more respect you gain for what Rich Brooks has done. The Wildcats proved yet again in their 34-27 win over Georgia how resourceful they are, how resilient they are and how they simply don’t give up -- sort of like how Brooks never gave up on this program several years ago when everybody else had given up on him. A win over the Vols at home this coming weekend would give the Wildcats their first eight-win regular season since 1984, quite an accomplishment when you consider all the injuries this team has endured this season.

3. Chaotic clock management: You could watch football for a long time (at any level) and not see a worse butchering of an end-of-game situation than what you saw from LSU on Saturday in its 25-23 loss to Ole Miss. And let’s face it: Les Miles has played with fire before in these situations. Remember the touchdown pass to Demetrius Byrd with one second left against Auburn in 2007? He got away with that one, but not this time. There was zero direction on the LSU sideline in that final minute against Ole Miss. Sure, Jordan Jefferson should have never taken that sack on second down, but he never should have been throwing the ball in the first place. Jefferson’s comments afterward were telling. He said confusion reigned and admitted that he “didn’t know what to do.” There were so many mistakes by the LSU offensive staff that the hardest part is trying to figure out where to start. The Tigers wasted 17 seconds before calling a timeout after the third-down play. They inexplicably didn’t try to run the ball after getting to the Ole Miss 32 with 1:04 to play. They didn’t have a plan in place for the final play. And even in the postgame press conference after all the chaos had ended, Miles seemed as lost in trying to explain it all as he did when it was all melting down around him on the sideline. The truth is there isn’t any explaining this one.

4. From bad to worse for Georgia: There was already a black cloud hovering over Georgia’s football program. This season hadn’t been what anybody wanted, but then the Bulldogs went out and lost to Kentucky … at home. Not only did they lose, but they dominated the statistics and still managed to lose. But that’s what happens when you turn the ball over four times in the second half and have 75 penalty yards for the game. The Bulldogs (6-5, 4-4) are staring squarely into the face of their first non-winning regular season since Jim Donnan’s first season in Athens in 1996. The Bulldogs might not be one of the top two most talented teams in the SEC, but they’re certainly one of the top three or four. Talent is not Georgia’s problem. It’s focus. It’s execution. It’s player development and it’s discipline. When you commit as many penalties as the Bulldogs have the past two seasons and turn the ball over as many times as they have this season (26), it’s obvious that there’s a decay in the program somewhere that has to be addressed. Mark Richt has been as classy as they come and as consistent as they come. But if he doesn’t address this decay with more than just cosmetic changes, then it’s going to be addressed for him.

5. Brantley looks the part: It was only for part of the second half and the Gators were up by something like 22 touchdowns, but this just in: Backup quarterback John Brantley can throw it. He’s a better pure passer than Tim Tebow and will add a dimension to the Gators’ passing game next season that they simply don’t have right now. Again, it was mop-up duty, but you talk to enough people in and around the Florida program, and there’s a quiet confidence about some of the things they’re going to be able to do next season with Brantley at the helm. Of course, you give up Tebow’s third-down prowess and his ability to make all the clutch plays with his legs and arm, and you also give up his incredible will to win and the impact that he's had on the rest of his teammates. But Brantley’s polished enough throwing the football that the Gators aren’t going to go quietly into the night next season when Tebow departs. In fact, Brantley might be the third or fourth best quarterback in the SEC right now.

Florida quarterback Tim Tebow continues his assault on the SEC record book.

His 55-yard touchdown run to put the Gators ahead 14-0 was the 54th touchdown of his career, breaking Kevin Faulk's career record for SEC touchdowns. Faulk scored 53 touchdowns at LSU from 1995 to 1998.

Taking the Friday temperature from around the SEC:

• Ole Miss defensive tackle Jerrell Powe has a score to settle with loose-lipped LSU, writes David Brandt of The Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
• A civil lawsuit accuses Auburn running back Eric Smith and two other players of assaulting a student during an August incident, reports Jay G. Tate of The Montgomery Advertiser.
• Mississippi State quarterback Tyson Lee has taken his lumps, but keeps on keeping on.
• The Outback Bowl could be in the mix for LSU, writes Randy Rosetta of The Baton Rouge Advocate.
• Former Tennessee quarterback B.J. Coleman gets his shot at the Alabama defense.
• Another Georgia player has a run-in with the law over a driver's license issue.
• Is this the year that Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong finally gets a head job?
• Walk-ons could play a key role for Tennessee on Saturday against Vanderbilt.

Three of the five finalists for the 2009 Butkus Award are from the SEC - Alabama's Rolando McClain, South Carolina's Eric Norwood and Florida's Brandon Spikes.

The Butkus Award goes annually to the top linebacker in the country.

The other two finalists this year are Texas' Sergia Kindle and Missouri's Sean Weatherspoon.

McClain, Weatherspoon and Spikes were all finalists last year.