TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — You could almost hear the flipping of television channels from all around the region.

Eastern Kentucky at Florida.

Charleston Southern at Georgia.

South Alabama at South Carolina … Hey that’s 17-9 at halftime.

Samford at Auburn. Yeah, never mind.

OK, so it wasn’t the most exciting weekend of the Southeastern Conference’s schedule, even if it did include another impressive win by Arkansas, 30-0 over No. 8 Ole Miss, and a tight game between Missouri and Tennessee.

Florida won 52-3, Georgia 55-9, and South Carolina prevailed 37-12.

This was the flip side to rivalry week, however Saturday morning ESPN’s College GameDay went too far calling it an embarrassment that so many teams from the conference were playing Football Championship Subdivision opponents — all except Lee Corso, the only analyst on the pregame show who had been a coach.

“I take it personal when they say that this is an embarrassment,” Western Carolina coach Mark Speir said after Alabama’s 48-14 victory at Bryant-Denny Stadium, and good for him.

Granted, his school got a big check to make this trip and with the Catamounts not making the FCS playoffs closed their season 7-5. So this was their moment and WCU even had the lead for a few minutes after getting a big break on an early whistle that nullified a turnover.

Alabama, meanwhile, already had the monstrous trifecta of visiting LSU, No. 1 Mississippi State and then the rivalry game with Auburn on its November schedule.

Imagine for a moment that there was another SEC game in there instead, and for the sake of argument we’ll say the .500 league team, Florida.

The Crimson Tide’s chances of making it through a month like that undefeated? Zero.

Not just this year, but any year.

Moreover, the SEC is taking fire for not having a ninth conference game, yet the schedule is already more than tough enough. According to Jeff Sagarin’s ratings, which factors in strength of schedule, Alabama came into Saturday 7-1 against teams in the top 30.

That’s out of 10 opponents.

“I would like to see SEC teams play more non-conference games but your body breaks down throughout a season,” former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow said on ESPN’s other pregame show, SEC Nation. “It is hard to sustain it physically. Would I want to go play a Texas or USC? Sure. But is it better for your body or your team? I think it’s probably better to recover. “

For those of you who are wondering why teams simply don’t schedule an off week before facing their primary rivals remember that championship games have to be played during the final week of the regular-season window, so for the league’s other 12 teams it’s considered an off week.

Consequently, most years they’ll only have one other bye during a 12-game regular season. Factor in a month-long training camp and that’s a really, really long time to go without a break in such a physical sport.

Go back to 2010 when Alabama was the reigning national champion and the last seven opponents on its regular-season schedule all had a bye the previous Saturday. That was a year in which each SEC team only had one open date too.

Alabama went 4-3 during that stretch, and while it became obvious that team didn’t quite have the same focus and determination as its predecessor, it obviously was a factor. It’s the Crimson Tide’s only three-loss season since 2007.

Auburn in particular made a point to schedule a bye before facing its in-state rival, and it was a smart thing for Tommy Tuberville to do. Isn’t that what every coach wants, to have his team playing its best in the biggest games?

College football has never been bigger and ratings are through the roof, yet there’s not doubt that with the playoff the smaller schools are getting squeezed.

So yes, the easy reaction is to say, “We shouldn’t have weekends like this,” but I disagree.

To me this just adds to the buildup for next weekend, which is the best of the year in college football.

It seemed appropriate that Alabama’s homecoming was a little more about the school and renewing acquaintances, and a little less about football.

I liked that Saturday’s marquee game was Yale at Harvard and the College GameDay guys went and froze their rears off. If you’re a big-time college football fan “The Game” should be on your bucket list right after Army-Navy.

Western Carolina at Alabama wasn’t a sellout. The student section wasn’t packed and after getting blasted 153-6 the first three meetings the Catamounts reached the end zone (gasp) … twice.

But it was anything but an embarrassment, and it certainly wasn’t worse than Wake Forest and Virginia Tech. They went into overtime scoreless, with a 6-3 final in double-OT after the Hokies missed a – get this — 53-yard field goal.

Every game can’t be Alabama-Auburn, which makes that kind of game only that more special.

“It’s the game we’ve had circled for 365 (days),” Alabama junior linebacker Reggie Ragland said.