Maybe it's cheating to put Oklahoma and Texas in the same conference as Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, Florida, and LSU... But that's the reality, and even when someone in that group is down (Auburn, Florida), the SEC almost always provides another team (Ole Miss, A&M) that is on an upswing.

They're spending more money, they're in an area of the country that cares more about football and produces better high school talent, they're corrupt as all get-out... and they went out and got all the good teams.

They're not a top-heavy conference anymore—they're deep.

How to balance that reality against the need to provide access for other programs and conferences is a crucial question (no one will watch if it just turns into an SEC single-elimination tournament) but we're kidding ourselves if we act like the middle of the SEC is dead weight.