Talent + money + obsession = dominant football in SEC

This feature originally appeared in CBS SportsLine’s 2007 College Football Preview. Click here to order your copy today!

Part I Monday: Best Ever
Part II Tuesday: The Legacy
Part III Wednesday: Moving Past Bear's Shadow

College football IS the South. It can argued that the game wouldn't be as popular as it is today if it hadn't sprung from the South's bosom. The game's apostles carry the gospel in their hearts and playbooks to far-flung outposts. At the center of Southern football for the past 75 years has been SEC, annually the game's strongest conference. CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd is spending the next three days detailing how 2007 might be the high point of Southern football and the SEC.

How tough is the SEC?

"The national championship game was a bonus game," said Florida safety Tony Joiner of his team's march to the 2006 conference title.

How tough is the SEC?

The chances of Urban Meyer and the Gators repeating as national champs are very slim. (Getty Images)

"They really haven't played football," Joiner said of his freshman teammates. "They don't know what a season in the SEC is like."

How tough is the SEC?

It has never been tougher, actually. When Florida players were asked about a repeat this offseason, they thought first of defending the school's seventh SEC title since 1990.

The program's second national championship in 10 years? That would be nice, too.

"People are asking us all the time on campus, 'Are we going to repeat?'" Joiner said. "I just tell them we're trying to get back to Atlanta this year (site of the SEC title game). I think the fans will be satisfied if we get back to Atlanta."

The assignment was to write about the nation's No. 1 football conference. It's arguably the No. 1 story in college football this season. Yes, the SEC is good. You knew that. But something happened in the past few years, maybe in the past few months, which pointed out a more disturbing trend: The SEC rules our lives. We live by its rules, try to keep up with its recruiting, are amazed by its pay scale and play by its tempo. What is it they say: There is speed, and then there is SEC speed?

Leaf through the magazines, the websites, the -- what did they used to call them? -- newspapers. No one is actually talking about Florida successfully defending last season's national championship. That's because after slogging through the next three month's worth of blood, sweat and payback, it ain't likely.