A lot of blogs are doing this, so I feel I should jump in. And with the recent nothingness in sports, why not? When the top story from yesterday was a non-related dog stabbing, football posts become a must. Which brings me to this: Each day I will try and post major conference breakdowns for all you college fanatics out there. The Big Twelve, SEC and ACC will be broken into two parts, since there’s two different divisions. All other conferences will be done in whole. Today we’ll focus on the SEC East, tomorrow the SEC East. Monday we’ll pick up again and, I dunno, maybe cover the Pac 10; it’ll have to be a surprise.

I’ll have a ranking posted next to each team, and for the teams in conferences broken down by divisions, that ranking doesn’t represent the ranking for the division. . . it represents the ranking for the entire conference. On we go.

• Florida (1): They’ll be the best team in the SEC this year, and anybody from Baton Rouge who wants to argue, well, all I have to say is this: Les Miles. Urban Meyer has done nothing but great things since his arrival in Florida, and even if he’s paying players — there’s a lot of grumbling that Urban has to be doing something wrong — he’s still getting them. The defense loses a lot, but it’s hard for me to imagine that the offense is going to drop off with Tim Tebow and an older Percy Harvin. He’s smaller than Reggie Bush, sure, but also might be faster.
• Tennessee (4): The East used to dominate the SEC, but the tides have kind of turned. The Vols pretty much lost everything resembling a starting wide receiver, but David Cutcliffe has a knack for making decent players great; Robert Meachem, who had done nothing in two years before Cutcliffe, was nearly an All-American last year. Erik Ainge is a polished four-year starter, and the defense should be solid enough to squeak out some wins. With their only tough road games coming at Florida and at Alabama (they play at Cal, but that’s out of conference and, uh, also the Pac 10. . . you know, not so difficult), the schedule favors them. They play at Kentucky to fiinish the year off, which could be a harder game than normally expected.
• UGA (6): Yes, the Bulldogs will finish sixth overall in the SEC. Their defense will more than likely be in shambles, but being Georgia, and constantly pissing me off (I’m a Tech fan, remember?), they’ll manage to win enough close games to make me go crazy. Matthew Stafford will progress as a sophomore, and Kregg Lumpkin will handle the load at running back. After a 4-4 season last year in the SEC, Mark Richt could be under some scrutnity midway through the season.
• Kentucky (7): Hard to imagine that Kentucky will be a team to once again be wary of. The last time people gave a damn about the Wildcats? Well, it was the glory years of Tim Couch. The reason people won’t want to face them this year? Well, it’s pretty simple: Andre’ Woodson. He’s Michael Vick without the animal rage. With Florida, LSU, and Tennessee at home, you can pretty much count on one of them being upset.
• South Carolina (8): You have to root for The Ol’ Ball Coach, but, to be honest, his team just isn’t that good. He’s lost Ko Simpson and Sidney Rice the last couple of years, and they were two of the very few bright spots on this South Carolina team. Blake Mitchell gets in fights and doesn’t show up to practice, and their schedule is nothing to sneeze at: At Georgia, at LSU, at Arkansas, at Tennessee, and at North Carolina (yeah, the last one doesn’t seem too difficult, but people are really building up Butch Davis).
• Vanderbilt: The players here can at least say they got a good education. And a few of ‘em played with Jay Cutler. Hey, when you play for Vandy, you look for any positives you can find.