Ray Glier

So, how many of you wandered from the light? You know, actually thought the SEC had a rival as the best conference in I-A football?

There were plenty of you and now that it is the halfway point of the season, you that were the lost should be back by now. There was no heir to the SEC, after all.

A conference’s strength is not measured by non-conference record, but by the depth of the league. You know that, of course, but we are here to remind you that LSU trounced Mississippi State, which beat Auburn, and Auburn, remember, beat Florida.

We should also point out that the best player at Arkansas is certainly running back and possible Heisman Trophy frontrunner Darren McFadden, but that the most impressive player at Arkansas is all-purpose back Felix Jones, who runs for 126 yards a game, returns kicks at 34 yards a pop, averages 209 yards per game in all-purpose yards, and has seven touchdowns.

While we are on the subject of depth, did the Florida Gators look like the second or third best team in their division to you last Saturday night? They didn’t to No. 1 LSU.

Every week there is a terrific storyline in the SEC. Last week it was the Gators and Tebow in Baton Rouge. This week it is No. 1 LSU at Kentucky, which has a dangerous quarterback in Andre Woodson. The week after this, Oct. 20, a terrific road team, Auburn, plays at LSU. The week after that South Carolina, which is finally legitimate under Steve Spurrier, plays at Tennessee.

You have heard about the quarterbacks Woodson and Tebow. Well, Tennessee's Erik Ainge is having a better season throwing the ball than either of them.

Special feature Florida faces SEC upset

I’m not here to trash the Pac-10. It is a very, very good league, but on the same night No. 1 LSU and Florida played a sensational SEC game, No. 2 Southern California lost to a thin Stanford team in a regrettable Pac-10 game.

Cal is explosive. A terrific team. Oregon looks fine, too. Washington isn’t bad and Dennis Erickson has Arizona State rolling the rock uphill. The best teams in the league, Southern California and Cal, make teams respect the run and they have hitters on defense who stop the run.

Joey Johnston on college football LSU a true No. 1, but ... Tigers certainly not perfect, no lock to reach title game

But the debate — SEC vs. Pac-10 — never should have been started by Les Miles, the LSU coach who got carried away ripping USC and the Pac-10 during idle time this summer.

Just look now. Ten of the 12 teams in the SEC will probably go to bowl games. There are seven SEC teams in the Top 25. The conference is 29-4 in non-conference games, which you probably should have guessed, is better than any other league.

I can keep coming up with stuff. LSU will play its fourth Top 20 opponent on Saturday. The SEC has already drawn 3.4 million fans this season. Don’t bother to look it up; it has to be the best among I-A conferences.

This all matters because programs have cash reservoirs that take their recruiting planes out of the south and the more they can thump their chests in Texas and Ohio and other hotbeds, the better. Superiority matters, too, because Southern California has directions into the south, like Louisiana, and can pluck players away from heart of the SEC.