1. Basically what ArchDawg said. First of all, the middle of the SEC (everyone other than Bama and Florida) is not very good. But we should also give credit where credit is due. The ACC embarrassed itself in OOC games early in the season, but a lot of its teams have come along over the course of the year. There’s no truly great team in the league, but it does have a number of very solid middle-tier teams. The conference is very balanced.

2. I don’t think anything has really changed as far as the bowl picture. Kentucky or Vandy might have been able to jump South Carolina with a win, but both lost as well. Ole Miss is playing better than UGA right now, but the Cap One will still go with the more nationally prominent Dawgs. The only question to me is whether the Outback, which picks before the Peach Bowl, goes against tradition and picks LSU instead of South Carolina, leaving Carolina in the Peach. The Outback usually takes an East Division team, but with Carolina not a very attractive team right now and LSU being more of a ‘name’ team, it wouldn’t surprise me if they go with the Tigers.

3. We’ll have to see who they hire before we judge them, but my initial impression is that it was an ill-advised move. MSU is a traditional cellar-dweller that had a few good years under a cheating coach. They need to stop pretending they’re Alabama and can fire a coach assuming that they’ll be able to find something better. I’m not saying Croom has done well, but with a solid recruiting class coming in, I think they should have given him a little more time to try to build the program.

4. Texas and Oklahoma is too close to call, IMO. As far the other at-large BCS bid, Ohio State will get it. Boise State is a nice story, but there’s no way they’ll get picked over the Buckeyes.

I mean how the hell do you lose to Clemson? Thats a disgrace. Just for that i say they should be on a 6 year probation from the SEC championship game. Oh wait that won’t be much of a deterrent.

1 – There’ll be some damage, but the SEC wasn’t exactly flying super high at this point anyhow. The difference, as noted by others above, is that the ACC has a number of teams in the ‘very good’ range, while the SEC goes pretty quickly from ‘excellent’ to ‘good’. I would have liked to see Ole Miss against an upper half ACC team…

2 – I don’t think the bowl picture really gets muddled much until the fifth pick at worst; 1-loss Bama goes to the Sugar, and 2-loss UF is pretty certain to go there too. (The BCS at-large pool is going to be awfully shallow this year, with so many of the top-14 being from the Big 12 or non-auto conferences.) Ole Miss is a comfortable second in the West, and almost has to go to the Cotton. UGA is the clear second in the East, which means the Cap One. I’d guess that USC and LSU are taken by the Outback/Peach; their late seasons weren’t real inspiring, but Vandy and Kentucky collapsed down the stretch.

3 – I’m pretty concerned that they’ll come after Strong – he’s an excellent coach, he knows the conference, and it would be brilliant PR. He’d be well advised to send them on their merry way and wait for decent mid-major, but you never know…

4 – Well, Oklahoma was it… and I guess they would have been my choice, by the narrowest of margins. But Texas is next in line for Miami if the Okies slip (and perhaps even if they don’t, god forbid.) UCLA would undoubtedly love to ruin USC’s season again, but that looks awfully unlikely. (Of course, it did in 2006 too.) And I haven’t a clue who gets the tenth spot… though there’s a rumour that Utah and Boise State might be matched up. Which would be a fiendishly clever ploy by the big 6; the little guys couldn’t claim they were being shorted if two of them got in, but they wouldn’t be given a chance for a really prominent scalp.