Nation's best team is in SEC, but which one?

Oh my Lord, I've seen the future of college football and it's bright red. It has seniors who play like seniors and freshmen who play like seniors and the most infuriatingly great coach in the country. His name is Nick Saban. His team's name is Alabama. And that's the future. Might even be the present.

But the present is going to be crowded, because I've seen it and it's not red at all. It's orange, and it has world-class speed at running back and NFL speed everywhere else. They score when they have the ball and when you have the ball, and they do it spectacularly. Their name is Florida. They could be the best team in the country.

Brandon James and the Gators repeatedly burned Hawaii, which went 12-1 last season. (AP)

Unless the best team in the country is the same as it was a year ago, when it wore yellow. Its quarterback has changed and its running backs have changed and its best receiver and defensive tackle and safety and cornerback are gone as well, but nothing changes. Not for LSU. For one half Saturday, that was the best team I saw.

But then, I didn't get to see the best team in the country. It wore red and black. Unlike Alabama and Florida and LSU, it woke up Saturday morning ranked No. 1 in both major polls and it went to bed Saturday night with the first of many blowout victories tucked under its pillow. That's Georgia.

And this is the SEC in 2008. It's crazy-good this season, even by the crazy-good standards of the SEC, which last year saw LSU suffer two losses in league play and then demolish Ohio State in the 2007 national championship game. Two years ago the SEC saw Florida lose by double figures to Auburn and beat Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Tennessee by a combined eight points ... and then manhandle Ohio State in the 2006 national championship game.

It's way too early to say this, but such is my genius. I see stuff way ahead of schedule, and then I say it. And I'm saying this right now, before the calendar even hits September: This is the best SEC in the history of the SEC, which means this is the best conference in the history of college football.

Going forward, this puts pressure on Top 25 voters and everyone else who helps determine the BCS rankings. It puts pressure on them right now, because this week's polls will help determine next week's polls, and on and on until we have a national championship game in January. Rank a team too high or too low in August, and that ranking lingers like a bad smell. As teams win and lose in September and October and November, they are shuffled according to where they were ranked in August. That's a fact.

And so the pressure is on now for voters to get this season right. And getting this season right might mean doing something illogical -- more illogical than any championship game the BCS has put together yet.

Two SEC teams in the BCS championship game.

It happens in other sports, and nobody complains. Kansas once defeated Oklahoma for the national championship in basketball, three years after Villanova beat Georgetown. Southern California beat Arizona State in the 1998 College World Series, one year after LSU beat Alabama. In women's basketball, Maryland has beaten Duke and Tennessee has beaten Georgia for national titles. You see? This stuff happens everywhere.

This could be the season it happens in college football. Two SEC teams in the national title game. Open your mind.

Not that you should close your mind to Southern California or Oklahoma, two non-SEC teams that look like they could compete in the SEC, which means they could compete for the national championship. They also looked devastatingly good on Saturday. But definitely close your mind to Ohio State. Been there, done that. Get back to us, Buckeyes, when Terrelle Pryor is ready to start.

In the meantime, if you've refused in recent years to give into the hype around the SEC, give into it now. The game is over. Whatever the hype tried to tell you, the hype was wrong. The SEC is even better than that.