SEC football

So now LSU is under suspicion because of that guy connected with Oregon, and Georgia just had a micro-suspension. That has got me thinking. Okay, SEC fans, we've had our time. The conference has been at the top, and things are bound to turn down. Since that's inevitable, I want the conference to go out with a little style.

Let's say that the current situation at LSU is just the tip of an iceberg, that the school has been hiring all sorts of illegal recruiters. That's LSU. I know that Bobby Petrino, Houston Nutt, and Nick Saban would cheat. I think Mean Eugene is honest, but perhaps the culture at Auburn is too corrupt for him, and also his players are obviously burglars and criminals. I know that Tennessee is inherently cheating. Mark Richt seems too goody-goody, but that's what people thought about Jim Tressel, too. Maybe Steve Spurrier is willing to bend the rules a little bit more than usual, thinking at his age he's got nothing to lose. Perhaps some of that Kentucky anything-to-win in basketball has leaked over to the football program.

What I am describing is a conference with the kind of rampant lawlessness we might associate with the old Southwest Conference. But it's on a much bigger stage, with much bigger stakes. And that's what I want to see: multiple titles, multiple probations, multiple scandals. I want serious discussions about a school getting the death penalty. I want the kind of hubris that poets would write about, or that could at least be a made-for-TV movie. I want to do this old school.