1. I don’t want to get on a soapbox, but …

They’re not going to like the sound of this in Chicago. Or Greensboro. Or Dallas. Or wherever the Pac-12 does business these days.

This might be the most dangerous SEC in a long, long time.

“There’s nothing fancy about it,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron told me this summer. “If you can win in the SEC, you can win anywhere against anyone.”

It’s not the most talented SEC in years, or the most experienced or even the deepest. But its impact on the season – and specifically, the College Football Playoff — will again be undeniable.

You wanted an expanded CFP, so here it is: three teams from SEC West Division, and their cousin from the East Division, all playing for one or two spots in the Playoff.

  • Alabama: at LSU, Auburn.
  • Georgia: at LSU, Auburn.
  • LSU: Georgia, Alabama.
  • Auburn: at Georgia, at Alabama.

Want to know why the SEC is a country mile ahead of the rest of college football, and why — like it or not – it’s going to translate to two more SEC teams likely crashing the College Football Playoff party in December?

Because among the SEC elite, the level of play at the most important position on the field has reached championship level. Add that critical addition to four of the best defenses in the nation is a lethal combination for Alabama, Georgia, LSU and Auburn.

LSU quarterback Joe Burrow was the latest to join the group of elite quarterbacks last weekend with a gutty performance in a road win at Auburn. Now the Tigers – like Alabama (Tua Tagovailoa), Georgia (Jake Fromm) and Auburn (Jarrett Stidham) – have made the SEC four-wide on the march toward the CFP.

That’s not including Mississippi State, which is giving up 8.7 points per game, has 33 tackles for loss in three games and has a senior quarterback (Nick Fitzgerald) who has 663 total yards and 8 TDs in two games. Or Texas A&M – which should have beaten heavyweight Clemson two weeks ago — and QB Kellen Mond, who has 927 total yards, 9 TDs and zero turnovers in three games.

Tagovailoa, Fromm, Burrow and Stidham have combined for 23 touchdowns and 3 interceptions, and Tagovailoa and Burrow haven’t thrown an interception. The numbers for the five SEC West Division quarterbacks (including Mond and Fitzgerald) and Fromm are even better: 40 TDs, 4 INTs.

That’s how you win big games – especially with stout defenses setting the tone.

This might be the most dangerous SEC in a long, long time.

The only thing that slows this train is a round-robin slugfest that leaves everyone bloodied for the beauty pageant that is the CFP. Throw Texas A&M and Mississippi State into the round-robin mix, and the idea of two teams escaping with Playoff-worthy resumes gets tougher.

  • Alabama: Texas A&M, at LSU, Mississippi State, Auburn.
  • Georgia: at LSU, Auburn.
  • LSU: Georgia, Mississippi State, Alabama, at Texas A&M.
  • Auburn: Texas A&M, at Georgia, at Alabama.

“I’m telling you right now, Mississippi State or Texas A&M is going to get one or two of those (elite SEC teams),” an SEC coach told me this weekend. “When you have quarterbacks playing at that level, every snap is a big deal. You’re one play away from the game changing for good. Everything is magnified.”

2. The Saban Effect

Before we go further, let’s emphatically state that Nick Saban hasn’t sucked the very life from the SEC.

He has, in fact, infused it with a gut-check reality of cutthroat impatience.

If you’re not doing everything possible to get better and catch Alabama – changing coaches, building immaculate facilities, scheduling key non-conference games – you’re not trying.

Georgia was tired of averaging 10 wins a season, so it fired beloved coach Mark Richt (and paid him $4.1 million), hired Saban’s right hand man (Kirby Smart) and started spending (more) money.

Two years later, the Bulldogs were a 2nd-and-26 from winning the national championship.

Credit: Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports

LSU paid off wildly successful coach Les Miles ($9.6 million) – the one guy who had a modicum of success against Saban – and tried to hire a coach who recently won the national title (Jimbo Fisher) and the next big thing (Tom Herman), before settling on Orgeron. It’s early in Year 2, but it looks like LSU is primed to make a run at the CFP (more on that later).

Texas A&M paid Kevin Sumlin $10.4 million to not coach, then paid Fisher $75 million to coach. It took all of two games – the Aggies got hosed on a couple of critical calls and still had a chance to take big, bad Clemson to overtime — to see that financial investment begin to pay off.

Florida fired Jim McElwain because he couldn’t recruit and couldn’t develop quarterbacks (and, to a lesser extent, lied about death threats), and gave him $7.5 million so it could hire Dan Mullen away from Mississippi State for $36 million over six years.

Tennessee fired Butch Jones and paid him $8.2 million to walk away, then hired Jeremy Pruitt – who has never previously been a head coach – for nearly $4 million a year.

In the past two years, Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M, Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas have paid a combined $52 million in buyout money.

That’s not capitulation, everyone. That’s loading up and throwing everything you’ve got at Alabama.

Auburn got so desperate last year, it renegotiated with Gus Malzahn (at $7 million per year) after the Tigers beat Alabama and before Arkansas could offer Malzhan whatever he wanted to return to his home state. Less than a month earlier — before Auburn beat Georgia and Alabama — Malzahn was coaching for his job.

So it should come as no surprise that three of the six aforementioned teams (Georgia, LSU, Auburn) have a legitimate opportunity to stop Saban from winning his sixth national championship in 10 years.

Moral of the story: spend money to make money. I mean, to beat Saban.

3. The SEC statement, The Epilogue

The reality of the most dangerous SEC in years is this: Only one of the elite four (Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Auburn) can mathematically finish championship weekend unbeaten.

Those with a loss (or losses) will deal with the consequences, and hope the CFP committee chooses based on merit, not conference championship. Or as SEC snobs like to say, the best four teams – not the best four conference champions.

And because we’re forced to use the transitive property in college football, we’re left with scenarios like this: LSU whipped top 10 Miami in the season opener, then last weekend came back from 11 down to win at Auburn.

LSU could go 11-1 and lose to Alabama and not play in the SEC Championship Game. The Tigers’ resume would then include wins over Miami, Auburn, Georgia, Texas A&M and Mississippi State.

Yet if one-loss Georgia then beats unbeaten Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, who advances to the CFP? Meanwhile, in the land of milk and honey outside the SEC:
Washington wins out, goes 12-1 and takes the Pac-12, and its anchor of a hope to reach the CFP with one loss is – wait for it — the strong nonconference schedule statement of losing to Auburn.

4. Getting ready for the gauntlet

Stop me when you’ve heard this before: Extremely talented team hasn’t had an impact quarterback in a few years, and has struggled to reach the elite level in the best conference in college football.

Said team signs a transfer quarterback from another Power 5 school, pins its hopes on the transfer, and week by week watches it all unfold into a potential championship season.

Auburn did it last year with Stidham, who started slowly and by November, was playing better than any quarterback in the SEC.

Now here comes LSU with Burrow, an Ohio State transfer who hasn’t exactly been a model of efficiency (completing 46 percent of his passes, 6.9 yards per attempt) but through sheer will and moxie does enough to win games.

Credit: Julie Bennett-USA TODAY Sports

LSU has three games where it likely will be double-digit favorites – Louisiana Tech, Ole Miss, at Florida – before a critical three-game homestretch (Georgia, Mississippi State, Alabama) that will define the season. Those three setup games are crucial for Burrow’s growth and confidence.

How the LSU staff uses Burrow in those three games will go a long way in determining if the Tigers can exit the first week of November as the No.1 team in the nation.

5. The Weekly Five

Five picks against the spread:

  • TEXAS A&M (+24) at Alabama
  • Florida at TENNESSEE (+5)
  • Mississippi State at KENTUCKY (+10)
  • GEORGIA (-14) at Missouri
  • South Carolina at VANDERBILT (+2.5)

Last week: 2-2 (one cancellation)
Season: 7-7 (.500)

6. Play for keeps

Here’s what we know about college football king Alabama: It knows how to dismantle overmatched FBS teams.

That all changes this week against Texas A&M, when the Tide gets its first real test of the season. The Aggies two weeks ago played through a couple of truly awful officiating calls to put themselves in position to tie Clemson in the final minute of regulation.

While it didn’t happen, it did show what Texas A&M is capable of under first year coach Jimbo Fisher. It was this game last year where Texas A&M got to within 12 points early in the fourth quarter (and eight in the final seconds), with essentially the same roster — and with Mond basically free-wheeling at the position.

Mond sees the game better now, and moves in the pocket to find time to go through progressions – while still using his legs as a dangerous alternative. This is another chance for a dual threat quarterback to have success against the mighty Tide defense.

Credit: Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports

“(Mond) is a different player now,” an NFL scout told me last week. “People say, well, he’s a 5-star guy, he should be good. No, it doesn’t work that way. He has gotten better because he’s being coached properly. His confidence has grown, and he’s a different thrower mechanically. He’s only going to get better.”

He’s also the type of quarterback that has given Alabama fits. The Tide’s history of struggles against dual-threat quarterbacks isn’t some boogeyman tale — it’s real, if only because of the scheme it plays.

Alabama plays a majority of man-under defense, a scheme that leaves the quarterback unaccounted for. Typically, Alabama’s defensive front plays at such a high level, the unaccounted quarterback doesn’t come into play.

Unless, that is, it’s a uniquely talented player (Mond appears to be), and the opponent’s offensive line gets its share of wins vs. Alabama’s defensive front (the Aggies’ O-line played very well against a Clemson front that might be the best in the nation).

7. Big game, small world

How important is Saturday’s annual Florida-Tennessee slobber-knocker that has become powder puff football in no time?

Both teams have three locks in the nonconference schedule, and Tennessee already has lost to West Virginia in its lone Power 5 game. Florida gets rival FSU in its lone P5 game, and hasn’t beaten the Seminoles since 2012.

That puts significant weight on this game, considering both teams likely will need three SEC wins to reach the postseason. A win Saturday for either team brings that magic number to two, and there’s not much wiggle room for either team in the SEC East schedule or the West rotation (Tennessee plays at Auburn, and Alabama; Florida plays at Mississippi State, and LSU).

8. Ask and you shall receive

Matt: My dad says Mark Stoops is safe after the Cats beat Florida. I still think they have to prove they can win 6 games in the East (Division) before we start believing Stoops can bring us to another level. They lost three straight to finish last year, and I’m still not over that. It’s not like Florida is a great team, anymore. They’re no better than we are.

Daniel
Paducah, Ky.

Daniel: Stoops has done a terrific job upgrading the talent at UK, and he probably should have at least two other wins vs. Florida. The biggest problem for Stoops: Kentucky hasn’t learned how to close out conference games.

UK lost three games by a combined five points last season, two of which were conference games (by four points) that would have put the Wildcats at your benchmark 6 wins in the East Division. In the previous four seasons (a full recruiting cycle), UK has lost seven one-score SEC games.

Those are the games that make or break coaching tenures in the league, and there are some difficult games on the horizon this fall, beginning this week against Mississippi State — which has won 8 of the past 10 in the series.

The Florida win is a good first step, but that schedule is a lot tougher than it looks.

9. Numbers game

4.8. The Georgia defense is sixth in the nation in passing yards per attempt, allowing 4.8 yards per throw. Missouri QB Drew Lock, meanwhile, averages almost double that (9.4 ypa.), and the Tigers like to throw intermediate and deep to big-play threat Emanuel Hall (18 catches, 23.9 ypc.).

Missouri has no chance of slowing down the Georgia offense; the Tigers aren’t physical enough on the line of scrimmage and they’re average in the secondary. That means they must match Georgia score for score, something South Carolina tried and failed to do.

10. Quote to note

Alabama coach Nick Saban on the Tide’s passing game: “The combination of what Mike (Locksley) has done in the past being a spread guy, and having Brian (Daboll) here last year, who basically gave us the New England Patriots passing game. The combination of those two things is really, really effective.”