I am a Kentucky fan first, but an SEC fan second. One of the perks of playing football in the SEC is that you don’t have to beef up your OOC schedule with tough games because you play a vicious eight-game gauntlet that is almost always good enough to tilt the BCS standings in your favor. However, in the past few years, the SEC schools have been playing top competition before the conference slate begins. As a person who wants to see the SEC make the best bowls possible, I am against this. The SEC is tough enough as it is. Why schedule one of these teams (especially on the road) when the schedule in conference play is difficult enough that no additional risks are needed?

Mississippi State has played West Virginia. Georgia has played Oklahoma State is will play Arizona State in Tempe. Tennessee did a home-and-home with California and will play UCLA in Los Angeles. Alabama played Florida State in Jacksonville and will play Clemson in Jacksonville this season. LSU did a home-and-home with Virginia Tech. Vanderbilt went to Michigan. Auburn did a home-and-home with USC near the peak of the Trojans’ run, and last year they played Kansas State and South Florida. This year they play West Virginia in Morgantown. I don’t mind Arkansas vs. Texas, Georgia vs. Georgia Tech, South Carolina vs. Clemson, Florida vs. Miami or Kentucky vs. Louisville because those are rivalries and nothing tops a college football rivalry. Still, I wanted to take a look at the marquee games SEC teams play out of conference in the first two months of the season.

September 1: #18 Tennessee @ UCLA

Why does Tennessee keep going to the West Coast? I know they’ve gotten some recruits from there (Casey Clausen comes to mind), but they rarely win the game. I’m going to put down the Pac-10 when I talk about Georgia vs. ASU, but I think UCLA might be a little better than people expect. I’m not saying they’ll win their conference (they won’t – USC will in a landslide), but Rick Neuheisel and Norm Chow know offense, and that had been the Bruins’ weakest area. Also, I’m not sold on Tennessee. Jonathan Crompton is very green at QB, the running backs are powerful, but don’t have the blazing speed possessed by Georgia or LSU, and the defense is still suspect. I don’t think UCLA would beat Tennessee if they played at the end of the season (Tennessee always has a top-heavy schedule and closes out seasons well), but I like the Bruins in this one.

Prediction: UCLA 28, Tennessee 27

September 6: Miami @ #5 Florida

Florida is either going to go undefeated in the regular season, or they will have one loss against Georgia. People bring up how mediocre their defense was last season, but I’ll counter by bringing up how young that defense was last season. Tim Tebow is a pretty good football player, and they have a ridiculous amount of talent returning at the skill positions, even taking into account the injury to Cornelius Ingram. Randy Shannon will turn Miami back into “The U” by 2010, but his young Hurricanes won’t be ready to take a gameplan into the swamp and execute perfectly, which is what they’d have to do to win. Also, I don’t like betting against Urban Meyer.

Prediction: Florida 42, Miami 24

September 13: Arkansas @ #11 Texas

Arkansas is in a major rebuilding mode with the loss of Darren McFadden and Felix Jones, plus having Casey Dick return at QB. Bobby Petrino will probably achieve success on the same level of Houston Nutt at Arkansas (which I’d kill for as a Kentucky fan), but not this season. Texas might be a tad underrated this season. Their talent level is always top notch, but I wonder if Mack Brown caught lightning in a bottle with Vince Young. This is the last game in this rivalry for several years, and I don’t see Texas losing.

Prediction: Texas 38, Arkansas 21

September 20: #1 Georgia @ #15 Arizona State

Arizona State is overrated because the Pac-10 is overrated. Every team besides USC has a great offense and a terrible defense. A lot of the people I’ve seen on TV have begun to hump on the “Georgia is overrated” bandwagon, but I disagree. If any team is capable of getting through that meat grinder of a schedule, it’s the Bulldogs, and it will start against Arizona State. I think Rudy Carpenter will rack up a lot of yards against Georgia, but I think Georgia has the kind of red zone defense that can take points off of the scoreboard, and Georgia will control the ball with the running game enough to win comfortably.

Prediction: Georgia 34, Arizona State 19

October 23: #10 Auburn @ #8 West Virginia

I really like Auburn to do big things this year. They looked like a totally different team as the big underdog against Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, and with Tony Franklin calling the plays and Cody Burns at QB, the Tigers’ new spread offense should be lethal. Auburn people don’t like Tommy Tuberville, which is one of the biggest mysteries ever. Somebody exhume Robert Stack’s body so he can figure that one out. WVU will be awesome on offense with Pat White and Noel Devine, but I wonder if their blowout win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl might have been a bit of an illusion. Those guys rallied behind Bill Stewart as the interim coach, but can they carry that into this season? Morgantown is a tough place to win, but if Pittsburgh can do it on a night where WVU could have made the title game, Auburn can certainly do it. I think they will, in a wildly entertaining game.

Prediction: Auburn 34, West Virginia 31

And finally, there’s Louisville vs. Kentucky.

Yeah, that one will have to wait for another day. I don’t want to waste that one on Monday because I’ll be dead for the rest of the week.

I’m Seth Stogsdill, setting the DVR for 5:00 today. ESPN Classic is showing a replay of last year’s Kentucky vs. Louisville game. There will be good times tonight.

Look to your right. See that fancy little sidebar. No, not that one, scroll down. Yeah, the one with all the SEC blogs. That’s all the members of the SEC Power Poll, hosted by Garnet and Black Attack. And yay for us (and you?), he offered us to be members!

Obviously you know our answer. What you don’t know is that instead of a traditional preseason ranking, all of the poll members will be ranking coaches. And today, we provide you our list. We’ll be providing our ballots every week during the season for the poll, so you can agree, disagree and generally just give your two cents. And here we go….

1. Urban Meyer, Florida
Why: Meyer is a great coach. He turned around Bowling Green. Then he took Utah to a BCS bowl, crashing the system. And then tada, he shows up at Florida and wins a national title. His team is a candidate to do it again this year. Meyer is the top coach.

2. Nick Saban, Alabama
Why: Yes, we know Alabama went 6-6 last year, missing a bowl. But this was a tough call between the former LSU coach who won a title and re-established a program and the current guy there. I got out voted and thus, Saban is second.

3. Les Miles, LSU
Why: College football is a here and now sport. And right now, Les Miles is a national champion. No way he doesn’t make the top three, he’s winning and winning now.

4. Tommy Tuberville, Auburn
Why: The man should have a 2004 national title. He’s always done well in Auburn, even though they try and run him out at every chance they get. Auburn is a respectable program and always in contention to win the SEC West.

5. Mark Richt, Georgia.
Why: Great coach. Great man. And he finally let his hair down last year. Is considered by some to finally get that title this year, but with all the injuries and off the field problems, I think Richt might wait a little longer.

6. Steve Spurrier, South CarolinaWhy: The only reason Spurrier is this high is because of his title and dominace at Florida. At South Carolina, Spurrier has been par for the course, never bringing the Gamecocks any additional success. 6-6 last year ain’t cutting it Steve.

7. Rich Brooks, Kentucky
Why: This is a Kentucky blog. Opponents may look at this and holler, but go ahead. He’s put UK back on the map, which you’ll notice this year. He’s recruiting well for UK. Things are going up from a program that was on probation when Brooks took it over. Oh and the other two people who helped rank these coaches are absolute homers.

8. Houston Nutt, Ole Miss
Why: Three SEC West title with Arkansas. Pretty good when LSU, Auburn and Alabama are in your league. Nutt can coach and I think that might be seen this year in a new location in Ole Miss.

9. Bobby Petrino, Arkansas
Why: Unproven in the SEC, but has a good track record as a SEC coordinator and did well at Louisville (don’t remind us!). This year could be ugly, but Petrino could rocket up the list.

10. Sly Croom, Mississippi State
Why: Mississippi State went to a bowl last year. Yipee. I really have no idea, other than I have to put Croom somewhere. I still don’t think the Bulldogs are going up anytime soon.

11. Phil Fulmer, Tennessee
Why: See Brooks, Rich. Homers had two out of the three votes in our group.

12. Bobby Johnson, Vanderbilt.
Why: Someone has to be number 12 and sorry Bobby, you’ll be 12 until you go to a bowl. Close doesn’t count.

If you believe the Gainesville Sun and ESPN.com’s Chris Low, then yeah… Jeremy Jarmon is UK’s best player.

The Sun released their list of the top 25 players going into this season in the SEC and Jarmon clocks in at 24 on the newspaper’s list.

ESPN’s Chris Low then took a crack at his own list, putting Jarmon at 23. You can view the newspaper’s list at that link as well.

It never dawned on me that Jarmon is probably our best player, offensively or defensively going into the season. If you would have asked me before today, I probably would have said Trevard Lindley. But Jarmon’s pass rush ability is going to make or break our defense — Lindley can’t cover all day.

Also, the only team that didn’t have a top 25 player on the list? Bobby Petrino’s Arkansas team. Ouch.

Earlier today, my partner in criminal activity, Kenny Colston, wondered aloud about where all the banter and smack on the approaching UK/UL football game had gone. He and I had been talking about it for a while and now I might have the answer. Truthfully, as I write this I don’t, but I’m hoping that through this personal discussion to blogreaderworld, something will come to mind. Here we go.

Let me start with a comparison here, because I just like to do so: a machine works only when all of its parts work together, right? When one or a few of the parts don’t work, the machine does something other than what it’s made to do. When none of the parts work, the machine does nothing. That is where this rivalry might be heading. It’s just a matter of will the rivalry be dysfunctional, or worse, gone?

Earlier, Kenny threw a rock into the pond of Louisville football suckness. Let me push a boulder off the barge real quick and say that UL football is done for. Done.

This week, the school announced the first ever team-wide curfew for its football team. Midnight. Every day. And I now wonder how many more transfers this will cause and what the final number of player defections (currently sitting at 22) will be. I think Steve Kragthorpe must be at least a half respectable man and the players just don’t agree with that mentality. We all know Opie wasn’t, which is why so many are now leaving or getting the boot… or robbing local convenience stores with 9 millimeter Uzis. Why didn’t this happen when Opie was head coach? Easy answer: all he cared about was winning.

Our starting safety raped a frog?
Opie: “If the public doesn’t know, we’ll hold onto him.”

The offensive line went out, got drunk, raped and pillaged Mt. Washington and came back three hours after our mandatory meeting this morning?
Opie: “Well, we can’t move the ball without ‘em, so let’s keep it hush hush.”

3rd string punter stabbed our 2nd stringer in the ankle?
Opie: “Dismiss his __!”

The point is, Bobby P. let the teenagers and “young adults” do what they pleased in order to keep their spirits up and keep them playing hard and whatever. Steve Kragthorpe inherited a group of (fill in this blank with your favorite UL put down), crapped his pants, and set his focus on cleansing the program of its former ways. Two problems with that Steve: 1) your employer is almost as much a snake as Bobby himself, and 2) UL CAN’T win without doing the Cardinal shuffle (a graceful turning of the head by the higher ups when the lower downs decide to do hoodrat stuff). Let’s just say this: Bobby would let Vick back on the team… today. He’d pick up Pacman Jones, Marvin Harrison, and any Cincy Bengal star if he thought they could help the team win.

So what does this have to do with rivalry-hype machine? Well, 1/4th of the machine is now damaged, lost, or completely useless. So the rivalry is dysfunctional again. There was little to no hype years ago until UL dropped John Loser S. as UK met probation, because Louisville was a boring, crappy team and Kentucky was just average. Since then, the Cats have steadily risen in the rankings, and UL has done just about what I’ve already discussed. Now that there is an actual human being leading that team once again, the Cards stand about as much of a chance at winning again as Hillary does at winning back Bill’s fantasies.

The city, the school, and the tiny fan base simply can not support a healthy, winning program. And that, my friends, is where all the hype has gone. Remember, it takes two to debate. And as long as UL fans know exactly what I’ve just discussed, they’ll avoid this debate like Dave Ragone would avoid playing opposite Dewayne Robertson again.