NCAA Football Sec

AUBURN, Ala. -- It was 20 years ago when an undefeated Alabama team rolled into Jordan-Hare Stadium only to be upset by Auburn in the first Iron Bowl to be played on the Tigers' campus. History nearly repeated itself on Friday, with just under two minutes to spare.

The second-ranked Crimson Tide (12-0, 8-0 SEC) completed a second straight perfect regular season with a come-from-behind 26-21 victory over the Tigers before a frenzied crowd of 87,451. Alabama held up its end of the bargain -- barely -- to set up a 1 vs. 2 showdown with top-ranked Florida in the SEC championship game in Atlanta in eight days.

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Top-ranked Florida's biggest challenge Saturday against Florida State may be making sure it doesn't get lost in the emotion of Senior Day. Drum roll, please.

UF's senior class, headlined by quarterback Tim Tebow, has won more games than any other in SEC history at 46-6. It is 27-5 in the SEC, 25-2 at Florida Field, 14-3 against ranked teams and 11-1 vs. Tennessee, Georgia, FSU and Miami. The class includes a Heisman Trophy winner and a national Defensive Player of the Year.

Let's not forget it has also helped win two national championships and crafted a nation-best 21-game winning streak. That's the beauty of this class -- it's also well aware of what's at stake. The Gators promise, cross their hearts, they are wary of heavy underdog FSU.

Georgia's football season has been, well, a nightmare.

The Bulldogs are next to last in the country in turnover ratio. They lead the SEC and are 116th nationally in penalty yards. They are nearly allowing just as many points (26.6) as they are scoring (27.5). They don't have a dependable quarterback or a defense. Let's not forget their coaching issues either. And, a moment of silence for Uga VII, the 4-year-old English Bulldog/team mascot that died unexpectedly two weeks ago from heart disease.

All that said, No.7 Georgia Tech should coast to an easy home win on Saturday against Georgia, right? Not so fast, says Tech head coach Paul Johnson, who also offers a unique view on the rivalry.

AUBURN, Ala. -- It just might be Alabama's biggest success story this season.

For an offensive line that lost All-Americans Andre Smith and Antoine Caldwell and opened the year with three first-time starters, the Tide's unit has come together just fine this season, thank you. The o-line will get another opportunity to show off in Friday's Iron Bowl against an Auburn defense that ranks last in the SEC in scoring defense (27 points per game) and ninth in total defense (359.2 ypg).

"I don't know if it was as much of a motivating factor as much as we just knew that we had to come to work," senior left guard Mike Johnson said of preseason questions surrounding the line and if those concerns served as motivation.

You're damn right he did!

You need Les Miles on that wall, you want Les Miles on that wall. And as you can see from the latest damning YouTube video, the Zapruder film of clockgate, not only did Miles signal for the clocking/spike (which today he denied), but he also screamed it as he was running down the sideline and gesturing it with both arms.

Oh, and then for good measure, as the game ended, he turned to the cop charged with protecting him and asked if LSU had any timeouts left.

On Saturday, LSU's Jordan Jefferson made the inexplicable decision to spike the football with only one second remaining in the game. Spiking the football ended the game and negated two miraculous Milacles: first, Les Miles' Tigers recovered an onside kick and then they completed a 46-yard Hail Mary. In his postgame news conference Miles claimed that he didn't know who had instructed Jefferson to spike the football. "I do not know who told him to clock [spike] it," Miles said.

Except, you guessed it, Miles himself was displaying his uncanny acumen by calling for the ball to be spiked with one second remaining on the clock. That's something that you can clearly see on this video after the jump. And yet another reason why LSU fans are still staring morosely at the waters on the bayou, shaking their heads, drinking Jax beers, and cursing the day that Les Miles didn't leave for Michigan.

Last week I wrote about the controversy over The South Will Rise Again chant at Ole Miss. In that piece I noted that Ole Miss was the only SEC school that couldn't escape the South's past. Now a new controversy is here, the Klu Klux Klan is protesting for this week's game against LSU. Seriously.

Faulkner memorably said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

And when it comes to Ole Miss that's certainly the case.

Uga VII, not surprisingly, the son of Uga VI, succumbed to an unexpected heart illness Thursday. The Bulldog mascot, in just his second year prowling the sideline, was only four years old. Presumably, he is survived by many other dogs given that Georgia uses lineal descendants to anoint the next mascot. The mascot-less Georgia team will play on Saturday against Kentucky without their English bulldog on the sideline. In a show of support, the entire team will lick their balls at halftime.

CBS carries the SEC Game of the Week into living rooms across the nation every weekend. CBS' deal is the only national broadcast of any collegiate conference. (Independent Notre Dame, of course, has an eight-game deal with NBC.) ABC also carries football games on network television. But the ABC games, featuring Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, Pac-10, and Big East teams are carried regionally. That means ABC carries teams split geographically, which would theoretically lead to higher overall ratings. That's been the case every year.

Until now.

For the first time since CBS added the SEC in 1996, the SEC games are outdrawing their regional counterparts on ABC. This season's SEC ratings are up 29 percent over comparable ratings last season. Given that CBS still has Alabama-Auburn and what will probably be the highest rated game of the season prior to the BCS bowls, Florida-Alabama in the SEC championship game, CBS and the SEC are likely to triumph over ABC for the season.

Should the SEC thank Tim Tebow? Maybe so. But even without Tebow, does this represent a fascinating turn in the ratings game? I think so. Read on for seven reasons why this is incredibly significant.

Okay, Greg McElroy admits he overreacted and his feelings were hurt.

It was two Saturdays ago, following Alabama's dramatic victory over LSU, when McElroy vented that people, including teammates, had lost faith in him as the Crimson Tide's starting quarterback. Two days later, McElroy apologized if his postgame comments offended anyone and he further explained that getting mad was not the way to getting better.

McElroy was certainly better in Alabama's 31-3 victory over Mississippi State last Saturday, silencing critics with a solid performance he intends to build on as the undefeated Crimson Tide (10-0, 7-0 SEC) continues its march towards the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta.