hen he was at Vanderbilt a few
years ago, James Franklin fa-
mously observed that "there
are only three conferences that matter in
football: the AFC, NFC and SEC." It
made for good copy – the man truly has a
gi/ – but it wasn't just self-serving
blather from a coach with a vested inter-
est in promoting the notion of South-
eastern Conference superiority. The SEC
really
was the only college football con-
ference that mattered at the time, at least
as far as the national championship was
concerned. SEC teams had won seven ti-
tles in a row and seemed poised to extend
their domination well into the future.
But the future has arrived, and it is not
the Southern-fried, magnolia-scented,
Lynyrd Skynyrd-soundtracked future
we had been told to expect. Florida State
ended the SEC's run last season by de-
feating Auburn, 34-31, in the -nal BCS
Championship Game, and the league
wasn't even represented in this year's --
nale, as its participant in the inaugural
College Football Playo., Alabama, was
bounced in the semi-nals by eventual
champ Ohio State, 42-35. The Crimson
W
PSU prepares to do battle with an emboldened Big Ten
>>
ON THE MOVE
