Free Republic

Blinn College quarterback Cameron Newton on New Year’s Eve committed to Auburn University marking his return to the Southeastern Conference where he began his college career. Newton led the Buccaneers to the NJCAA championship in early December and was considered the top junior college recruit in the country.

College football has been conquered, in nearly every respect, by the Deep South. The Southeastern Conference, a 76-year-old coalition of 12 universities in nine Southern states stretching from Louisiana to Florida, has won three national college football titles in five years, including the last two by blowout, and has an unrivaled 11-4 record in the Bowl Championship Series since 1999. Its teams lead the nation in average attendance, have five of the 12 highest-paid coaches in college football and just signed two broadcast deals worth as much as $3 billion over the next 15 years. Tomorrow, Alabama and Florida, ranked...

THE BCS NATIONAL TITLE GAME vs. Florida vs Ohio State (-7) The BCS National Title game is being played in Glendale, Arizona and features the BCS #1 team and Big Ten conference champion Ohio State Buckeyes vs. the BCS #2 and SEC Conference champion Florida Gators. Being that this is the National Title game as we know it, I’ll break it down by groups. Feel free to disagree if you like, but I’ll do my level best to keep it even here. Ohio State’s offensive line vs. Florida’s defensive line: This is one of 3 critical match-ups in the game....

AUBURN, Ala., Oct. 14 — It can be a merciless existence in the Southeastern Conference, with a team’s schedule stacked with Top 25 opponents and fierce crowds of up to 107,000 people screaming from start to finish at a visiting squad. Given all that, it was not exactly surprising that No. 2 Florida, trying to stay in the national championship hunt, was finally taken down by the SEC gantlet here Saturday night in Jordan-Hare Stadium. The Gators were surrounded by a howling crowd of 87,541, which revved up the Auburn defense in the second half as the No. 11 Tigers...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The SEC is first among Division I athletic conferences in annual revenues, first in football attendance and was the first league to stage a championship football game. But the SEC is last in another important category. With the hiring of Mike Shula at Alabama and Rich Brooks at Kentucky during the off-season, the SEC remains the only major conference that never has hired a black head football coach. The lack of minority coaches plagues college football nationwide, with only four black head coaches at the 117 Division I-A schools. But nowhere is the issue more visible than...