Conspiracy indeed

Oh I think there's definitely some truth to this theory.  There's all sorts of evidence validating it too.  Some of the calls UF and Bama have gotten this year have been downright awful.  The freshest one in my mind is of course the interception that wasn't called in last week's LSU-Bama game.  To me it looked like the LSU player had his feet in bounds, (yes, I said "feet" even though I know college football only requires one foot to be in bounds...that's how bad of a call it was).  You can say the LSU player hadn't secured the ball when he had that first foot down if you'd like, but that's irrelevant in the grander scheme of this theory. 

There is also, of course, last week when Urban Meyer was fined $30,000 for making a relatively harmless comment about the officials possibly missing a late hit call on Tim Tebow against UGA -- a comment made on the Wednesday after the game took place, four days later.  You can argue that it is the job of the SEC to make sure coaches don't criticize the judgment of the officials, but it's just a little peculiar that in that same UF-UGA game Brandon Spikes was caught trying to gouge out the eye of UGA runningback Washaun Ealey and the SEC only suspended Spikes for half of his next game.  It just seems that with those two incidents the SEC really went out of their way to ensure no other coaches critique their referees while ensuring at the same time that UF doesn't go an entire game without their best defensive player.

The real shame of it is that I love the SEC.  I think it's a great football conference because of it's ultra-competitive nature and consistently strong programs, but if this is the lengths it's willing to go to to ensure a spot in the National Championship game then it really is a shame.  Although one could also argue that they are victims of a broken system, (the BCS in general), and that it's not entirely the SEC's fault.  One could also go a step further and say that the SEC conspiracy is merely hiding under the umbrella of a much larger BCS conspiracy.  You can't honestly tell me the BCS is licking their lips at the possibility of a Cincinnati-TCU championship game.

-Dave