SEC: It’s Some Exciting Conference

The “Jerry Springer” show is more over-the-top than the Southeastern Conference, but not by much.

It is beyond doubt that the conference is, top to bottom, the nation’s best, with five schools ranked 16th or higher in this week’s Associated Press poll.

The problem -- if you could call it one -- is that the SEC takes its football so seriously that minor issues become major and major issues become rip-snorters.

This is a league in which member cities are apt to name institutions of learning after coaches instead of U.S. presidents, although what Tuscaloosa child wouldn’t be proud to attend Paul W. Bryant High School?

Hurricane Ivan?

It was enough of a monster last week to cancel games in the South -- California at Southern Mississippi, for example.

But no Category 3 was going to shut down football in America’s Conference.

The league issued a release late in the week that stated: All SEC football games on Saturday to be played as scheduled.

You got that right, brother.

The weekend after Sept. 11, 2001, the SEC wanted to play ball.

Roy Kramer, the commissioner at the time, said we can’t sit around watching television all day until, late in the week, under enormous pressure, he reluctantly pulled the plug on all games.

The SEC means well, it really does.

It cared so much it created the bowl championship series.

Mike Slive, the current commissioner, has vowed he will have all schools off NCAA probation -- the SEC leads the nation in everything -- by 2008.

The standard reply from outsiders: “They’ll cure cancer first.”

It’s always something with the SEC:

* Tennessee Coach Phil Fulmer conducted his SEC media day interview in July via teleconference from Knoxville because he feared being served a subpoena in Alabama as part of a lawsuit related to Fulmer’s providing evidence to the NCAA that helped put Alabama on probation.

* A former Kentucky assistant coach this week filed a $50-million defamation lawsuit against the NCAA and others because, best we can read it, the NCAA had the gall to ban him for eight years and call him a “liar and a cheat” for his role in a recruiting scandal.

The nerve.

* The SEC this year hired its first African American coach, Sylvester Croom of Mississippi State. Last week, Croom’s team lost a home game against I-AA Maine, playing a Division I-A opponent for the first time in more than a decade.

One can only imagine the conversations in Starkville diners that night.

* South Carolina Coach Lou Holtz announced he wants to give playing time to 39-year-old receiver Tim “Pops” Frisby if he is ruled eligible by the NCAA Clearinghouse.

We thought for sure Holtz would grayshirt Frisby and bring him back in 2005.

It gets even better in the SEC when they actually play games.

Last week, the conference boasted two knock-down, flag-out thrillers in Florida at Tennessee and Louisiana State at Auburn.

Tennessee eked out a two-point win on a 50-yard field goal with six seconds left. Florida later learned SEC game officials botched the clock on the final drive and gave Tennessee more time than it deserved.

They’ll curse this for years in Gainesville and write songs about it in Knoxville.

LSU and Auburn were tied, 9-9, in the final minutes when Auburn kicker John Vaughn missed what would have been the go-ahead extra point.

Officials, though, called a penalty on LSU defensive back Ronnie Prude, who was trying to block the kick, for falling on the Auburn center.

There’s a new rule this year saying you can’t do that.

LSU Coach Nick Saban serves on the committee that enacted the rule.

Saban voted against it.

Given a second chance, the Auburn kicker made the extra point and Auburn won, 10-9.

So?

So, Auburn is 3-0 under Coach Tommy Tuberville, who was so close to getting fired last year that the school president got on a private jet and secretly interviewed Louisville Coach Bobby Petrino for a job opening Auburn technically didn’t have.

Alabama, meanwhile, is off to the most horrific 3-0 start in school history because second-year Coach Mike Shula let star quarterback Brodie Croyle start the third quarter against I-AA Western Carolina with Alabama comfortably ahead, 31-0.

On the drive, Croyle tore knee ligaments and is now sidelined for the season.

Shula knew the injury was bad because “it happened right in front of me.”

This had to be followed by Shula’s seeing his career flash right in front of his eyes.

This week, the big games are Alabama at Arkansas, Kentucky at Florida and Mississippi State at LSU.

Georgia has a week off.

Frankly, we can all use the rest.

A Must Win?

It’s not a stretch to suggest that West Virginia’s overtime win over Maryland last weekend might turn out to be one of the most important victories in Big East Conference history.

With Miami and Virginia Tech having defected to the Atlantic Coast Conference, and Boston College set to leave in 2005, the Big East is fighting to keep its status as one of the six BCS conferences.

With the win against Maryland, West Virginia moved from No. 7 to No. 6 in this week’s AP poll. A loss might have knocked the Mountaineers into the teens and undermined the Big East’s chances for long-term survival.

All Big East hope, for now, is riding on West Virginia’s making a national-title run. The Mountaineers are the only Big East team ranked in the top 25.

Conferences that think they are just as worthy as the Big East of BCS status -- the Mountain West is one -- are ready to pounce should the Big East fade to obscurity.

The huge advantage of being in the BCS is that the six major conference champions get automatic bids to one of four lucrative major bowls -- Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar.

Commissioners met in Chicago this week to discuss, among other things, what criteria will be required for a conference to keep its BCS status.

“I’m not saying the Big East will lose its automatic qualification,” Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said. “But we’re going to look at this over the next four years. The clock starts ticking now.”

The Big East is safe for the final two years of the current contract and the first two years the next contract, which is being negotiated.

Beyond 2007, to maintain BCS status, conferences probably are going to have to meet standards based on overall conference strength, not one powerhouse school.

In other words, if West Virginia and incoming schools such as Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida can’t keep the Big East competitive in the next few years, the Big East could be in trouble.

West Virginia Coach Rich Rodriguez said he doesn’t understand the criticism directed at his conference.

“It’s not our fault that schools decided to leave the program,” he said of the defections. “It wasn’t like we said ‘get out.’ They decided to leave for their own various reasons, so the rest of us have scrambled to adapt and I think are going to show that we have pretty good football teams left.”

Hurry-Up Offense

In another rule change this year, officials are identifying players who commit penalties by number, just like in the pros.

So how is the new rule going over with players and coaches?

Opinion is mixed.

“I don’t like it at all,” USC Coach Pete Carroll said. “It’s for the wrong reason. It just falls into the category of ‘Let’s point the finger at somebody so we can cast the blame.’ ”

UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell has a different take, saying, “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. If anything, it makes the players think that this is how they do it in the pros.”

Verle Sorgen, the Pacific 10’s coordinator of football officiating, says the new rule makes referees more accountable for their decisions.

“I hope the official on the field, knowing that he has to get a number, will take that extra split-second to watch the act, to make sure it’s a penalty, not just glancing at it and going on to other officiating duties.”

UCLA linebacker Spencer Hav- ner wonders what the fuss is about.

“I haven’t even noticed,” he said. “You can’t hear the refs make calls on the field, so it really hasn’t been a big deal to me. But I think that it’s a good thing.”

Most dramatic flip-flop award goes to Kentucky, which scored no points in its first game against Louisville and 51 last week against Indiana.

We’re not sure what Louisiana Tech was thinking when it scheduled games this year at Miami, Tennessee and Auburn. Gee, why didn’t the school throw in “at USC” just for kicks?

Where are they now department: Quarterback John Sciarra Jr., who transferred from UCLA to Division I-AA Wagner in New York City, has thrown for 556 yards and five touchdown passes in three victories this season.... Craig Ochs, once the starting quarterback at Colorado, is having a big year at I-AA Montana, having thrown for 779 yards and five touchdowns in three games.