Two questions gnawed at me Saturday as I watched top-ranked Florida crush arch-rival Georgia 41-17 in college football's annual outdoor cocktail party in Jacksonville: Are the Gators that good? Or is the Southeastern Conference that bad? Here's what I've come up with.
Yes.
And yes.
Yes, the Gators are awfully good, as worthy as anyone of the No. 1 spot in this week's Bowl Championship Series rankings -- or any other -- ranking of the nation's major college football teams.
What they did to Georgia, which never had any real chance to win, was impressive.
The offense rolled. The defense swarmed. QB Tim Tebow proved that, when he's not slowed by the aftereffects of a concussion, he's still the most dominant force in the college game.
You don't want to bet against him.
You don't want to bet against them.
Not only have the Gators beaten everyone they've played thus far, but they're probably good enough to beat everyone they'll play the rest of the way. That includes No. 2 Alabama, the SEC's other undefeated team and their likely opponent in the conference championship game.
But is Florida the best team in America? Is Florida better than the other unbeaten teams? Maybe.
I don't know.
I don't know that the Gators are better than Texas or Iowa or Boise State, or even TCU.
I don't know that the Gators would beat any or all of those teams if they played on a neutral field.
I think they'd beat at least some of them, perhaps all of them.
But, again, I don't know.
And the reason I don't know is because this year's SEC is vastly overrated -- and has been, going all the way back to those silly preseason polls.
Yeah, I know: To say anything like that is considered blasphemy in these parts, where fan passion is too often confused with football prowess.
But that doesn't mean it isn't true.
Fact is, when the so-called experts vote in these polls, the SEC usually benefits from its storied history, rich tradition and sometimes-deserved reputation as the nation's premier conference.
This year, for example, Georgia was ranked 14th in the Associated Press' preseason poll. Mississippi was No. 8. Neither belongs anywhere near the Top 25, which, this week, should include only three SEC teams: Florida, Alabama and LSU, which suffered its lone loss to the Gators.
The rest of the conference is filled with also-rans.
And, please, let's not hear any of that baloney about SEC teams being better than their records because they knock each other off -- the same feeble excuse used to explain why the conference's top teams rarely schedule tough, non-conference opponents.
Take Florida out of the equation, and the SEC isn't noticeably better than the Big Ten or Pacific 10 or Big 12, or any of the other BCS conferences.
Not based on who they've played.
Not based on who they've beaten.
As the college season moves to November, SEC teams have beaten only two non-conference opponents currently ranked in the BCS Top 25. Alabama dumped Virginia Tech. Auburn beat West Virginia.
But both Virginia Tech and West Virginia lost again this week with only the Hokies ranked this week.
Who else did the SEC teams beat? The list includes the lightweight likes of Charleston Southern, Ball State, Memphis, North Texas, Washington, N.C. State, Texas A&M, Rice, Louisville, Jackson State, Ohio, Florida International and Florida Atlantic.
And what happened when SEC teams played higher-tier teams like Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State, Houston and UCLA? They lost.
So I go back to my second question.
Is the SEC that bad? OK, maybe not.
It's hard to say.
But this much I know: The SEC isn't nearly as good as too many of the so-called experts thought it was.
That doesn't mean Florida isn't college football's best team, or that the Gators -- if they remain unbeaten -- don't deserve a shot at the title.
It means, simply, that we don't know.
We're guessing.
And that's a lousy way to decide a national championship.
(Ray McNulty is a columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers. For more, see his blog at www.tcpalm.com/mcnulty. He can be reached at ray.mcnulty@scripps.com.)
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