Well, it didn't take very long after all. Part of the official AP Top 25 rankings are now out, and they tack pretty close to the results of the final USA Today coaches poll: Alabama is the national champion and the SEC has three of the five top teams in the nation.
1 Alabama (54 first-place votes)
2 LSU (1)
3 Oklahoma State (4)
4 Oregon
5 Arkansas
6 Southern Cal
7 Stanford
8 Boise State
9 South Carolina
10 Wisconsin
For now, that's all the AP has released. We'll have to wait and see where Georgia ends up, but if the Dawgs can reprise their role in the Top 20, that would give the SEC a fourth of such teams in both polls.
South Carolina ends up ninth here pretty much because Southern Cal can still be ranked by AP voters. There appears to have been only one LSU diehard but four folks willing to say that defense is overrated when it comes to winning championships. You can see all the voters' ballots here.
Again, it just goes to show what we've been saying for a few weeks now: The bottom of the SEC this year is a pretty mediocre bunch, except for the teams that are just clearly awful. But the top of the SEC is a pretty solid group.