After dominating the baseball world throughout the 90s and the early part of this decade, the conference seems to be a bit on the down side this year.

While that may not exactly be great come Regional time, it’s made for a highly entertaining conference race this season.

With one week to go, only one team (Georgia, who has clinched the regular season crown) has clinched a spot in Hoover for the SEC Tourney and only one team (Mississippi State) is assured of not being there headed to the final weekend.

That being said, as AU beat writer Collin Mickle pointed out, Auburn and, by extension, Tennessee need virtual miracles to make the field.

Here are the conference standings at this moment:

East:
Georgia 19-7-1
Vanderbilt 15-11
Kentucky 14-13
Florida 14-13
South Carolina 13-14
Tennessee 11-16

West:
LSU 15-11-1
Alabama 14-13
Ole Miss 14-13
Arkansas 13-13
Auburn 11-16
Mississippi St. 7-20

And here are the overall standings (I could be wrong on some of these tiebreakers and if so, please let me know):

1. Georgia 19-7-1
2. Vanderbilt 15-11
3. LSU 15-11-1
4. Kentucky 14-13
5. Alabama 14-13
6. Florida 14-13
7. Ole Miss 14-13
8. Arkansas 13-13
9. South Carolina 13-14
10. Auburn 11-16
11. Tennessee 11-16
12. Mississippi St. 7-20

And here are this weekend’s series, which begin Thursday:

Alabama at Georgia
Arkansas at Mississippi St.
LSU at Auburn
Vanderbilt at Florida
Ole Miss at Kentucky
Tennessee at South Carolina

When it comes to Auburn, they’ll have to sweep the hottest team in the SEC (LSU, who has swept three straight conference series and won 12 in a row overall) and hope for Arkansas to get swept by the worst team in the conference (which could be mildly possible, given that it’ll be Ron Polk’s final home series at Mississippi State), and for Kentucky and South Carolina to get swept at home.

Of the five teams immediately ahead of Auburn, they only have the tiebreaker over two of them (Kentucky and Arkansas, but the Arkansas one doesn’t matter since the Hogs will only play 29 games).

As for how everyone else will do, there’s really no telling. Collin and I have had virtually the same discussion at every meeting since about the fifth week of conference play, in that every time we think somebody’s moving to the forefront or falling back to the pack, the next week changes everything.

But looking at things, I’d say it’s highly probable that either Alabama or Florida could get knocked out of the tournament altogether, but Alabama has been playing good baseball of late and should give Georgia a good series, even if it comes out on the losing end. It’s much more likely that you’ll see Kentucky knock Ole Miss out, opening the door for South Carolina. If you had to ask me for my best guess for how the standings might look this time Saturday night, I might say this:

1. Georgia 21-8-1
2. Vanderbilt 17-12
3. Kentucky 17-13
4. LSU 16-13-1*
5. South Carolina 16-14
6. Arkansas 15-14
7. Alabama 15-15
8. Florida 15-15

*I think Auburn will play some inspired baseball in their series with LSU this weekend at Plainsman Park, given everything that’s at stake. I could see them getting 2-of-3 from LSU, but I’m just not sure they’ll have enough to get the series sweep. And even then, as you can see, it’s highly likely that that won’t be enough.

All in all, it should be a wild weekend. I’ll do my best to post here with all the happenings and keep the newspaper’s pages filled with all the information you need.

In a performance that brings to mind Footsteps Falco’s disastrous 1996 Sugar Bowl (yes I stole this joke from Bill Simmons), the Hawks simply fell apart early and allowed the Celtics to crush them like bugs.

So what did we learn from the Hawks over the last two weeks?

We learned that they are unbelievably gifted athletically (which any of the eight or nine Hawks fans prior to the playoffs would’ve been able to tell you beforehand), we learned that the Celtics may need to work on their mental toughness and we saw definitive proof that the Hawks are just a piece or two from becoming contenders again.

But the Hawks really shouldn’t have even been there.

A 37-45 team should never be rewarded with a playoff berth, especially when a team as good as the Warriors in the Western Conference gets left out.

There’s been a lot of discussion in recent years about the playoffs being all screwed up, and there have been plenty of examples in recent years of the two best teams meeting before the finals.

So, I present to you my system for making the playoffs better. (This is a post I’ve been meaning to make since they first gave me a blog, so I apologize that it’s not particularly timely. I just now have the time to do it.)

First of all, just take the top 16 teams in the league, no dividing things up by conference.

Obviously, this presents some problems in making sure divisions and conferences still matter, so my solution is to make the top six seeds the division winners, and give them homecourt advantage regardless of whether the team they’re playing has a better record or not.

So once you’ve played out the first round, then you can reseed. The NFL and NHL do it, why can’t the NBA?

So this is what the playoffs might look like under my system.

No. 1 Boston vs. No. 16 Portland
No. 8 Houston vs. No. 9 Phoenix
No. 5 Utah vs. No. 12 Golden State
No. 4 New Orleans vs. No. 13 Cleveland
No. 6 Orlando vs. No. 11 Denver
No. 3 L.A. Lakers vs. No. 14 Washington
No. 7 San Antonio vs. No. 10 Dallas
No. 2 Detroit vs. No. 15 Toronto

I’d say in many ways that’s a lot better than what we wound up with. The top three seeds’ series would be a little bland, but the last five would all be highly entertaining (especially Utah vs. Golden State). Why wouldn’t this be a good thing?

And then if we’re just spit-balling how the first round would go, here’s what the second round might look like:
No. 1 Boston vs. No. 11 Denver
No. 2 Detroit vs. No. 9 Phoenix
No. 3 L.A. Lakers vs. No. 7 San Antonio
No. 4 New Orleans vs. No. 5 Utah

If you’ve followed the NBA at all this year, all four of these series make your mouth water. I’m excited just thinking about it.

I won’t try to project all those series, but doesn’t this sound exciting? Maybe David Stern will take some time out of screwing over Seattle to read this blog.

Secondly, this has been an exhausting weekend.

Usually a busy day or two is having four or five local stories (about what a front page can hold and still look good at our size), but we had seven in Saturday’s and today’s editions.

When you have high school baseball quarterfinals, softball Area tournaments, softball state tournaments, track championships, a big Auburn baseball series and the AU softball team raising money for cancer research, not to mention the Kentucky Derby, NBA and NHL playoffs, a big NASCAR race and the usual fare of early season MLB games, it’s hard to decide what should go where.

Sports editor Mike Szvetitz and I nearly had a few knockdown-dragouts trying to budget.

But we got it done with minimal problems.

I’ll definitely be back later with some thoughts on whatever happens in Game 7 of the Celtics-Hawks series, and may even be back a few more times as the night goes on.

Good.

There’s going to be plenty going on in the Opelika/Auburn area (and around the state) this weekend.

Let’s see ... The Class 4A-Area 6 softball tournament starts today at Beauregard. Tomorrow, No. 1 Opelika will host McGill-Toolen in the quarterfinals of the AHSAA Class 6A playoffs in the best two-of-three. Also tomorrow, the Class 6A-Area 8 softball tournament begins at West Ridge Park in Opelika, the AISA state softball tourney gets cracking in Montgomery and the state track and field meets begin at Gulf Shores (4A-5A-6A) and Troy (3A-1A).

Oh, and Saturday, the Auburn High boys soccer team hosts Fairhope at Duck Samford for a quarterfinal playoff game, while the girls team travels to Mary Montgomery.

College baseball fan? Auburn hosts Mississippi State in a three-game series this weekend at Plainsman Park. First pitch of Game 1 is slated for 6 p.m. Friday.

There’s enough going on this weekend where if you don’t want to cut the grass or do any yard work, you can find plenty of excuses not to. And I here the golf courses are pretty nice this time of year.

So do yourself a favor, get out and take in a ballgame or two and save the yard work for another weekend. That’s what I’m going to do.

*** Well, we’re not going to have a playoff, or even a plus-one game, any time soon in college football.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be.

Money talks. And the BCS and bowls generate a lot of dollars for colleges and universities.

But it seems to me, the only schools and/or conferences who are for a plus-one or playoff are the schools/conferences who have been burned by the BCS. Maybe the reason the Big Ten and Pac-10 don’t want a playoff—and are using the Rose Bowl as a cover—are because whenever they have a team close to being “the best” they always get a nod into the national title game.

Did Ohio State really deserve to be there last year? Discuss.

Anyway, for now, we’ll have to deal with more bowls and less on-the-field problem solving.

As I said in a column last December that didn’t survive our move to the new Web site, I’m 100 percent against a “plus-one” system in determining a champion.

Is it a move forward from what we have now? Maybe. But in many ways you’d be opening the door for massive amounts of arguing if they were to try a 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3 type system.

Just on my end, I find it massively unsatisfying in calling something a playoff that only allows four out of 120 teams in. My own personal preference has always been a 32- or 64-team playoff (and yes I know that would never happen and would devalue the regular season too much), but even if we’re going beyond that there’s the matter of how you’re going to pick who would be a part of it.

And what about years when just two teams are undefeated? Why make them bother with playing a game and potentially getting a key player hurt before they get to each other?

So with that thought in mind I decided to take a look at the final BCS standings in each year of the BCS era to gauge the feasibility of the plus-one in each year. Here we go. (I’m only including teams which would have a case for being in a four-team playoff)

1998

Final standings:
1. Tennessee 12-0
2. Florida State 11-1
3. Kansas State 11-1
4. Ohio State 10-1
5. UCLA 10-1

A plus-one could have potentially worked in 1998. Tennessee obviously belonged there, and wound up playing Florida State in the first BCS national title game, winning, 23-16.

The Seminoles weren’t a particularly great team by the time they played the Vols thanks to the absence of Chris Weinke, who was lost for the season in the Noles’ 10th game.

Ohio State was, by far, the most talented team that year, but were coached by John Cooper, who I liken to Les Miles, only if Miles were a worse coach and a better recruiter.

UCLA and Kansas State each lost games on the final day of the season, the Wildcats to Texas A&M in the Big XII title game and the Bruins to Miami in a game that had been rescheduled from September. Both of those teams were probably better than Florida State (at least at that point of the season).

So you certainly have a case where there are teams that might’ve belonged there more than the team that actually made it, but who are you going to leave out?

It’d be easy to leave KSU out, since they didn’t even manage to win their conference, but the BCS formula at the time (which, I think, was far better than what we have now) seemed to think the Wildcats were better than UCLA.

All in all, it would still feel pretty unsatisfying.

1999

Final standings:
1. Florida State 11-0
2. Virginia Tech 11-0
3. Nebraska 11-1

As you can see, only three teams really stood out, undefeated Florida State and Virginia Tech squads and a superb one-loss Nebraska team. So if you’re trying to match up four teams there, who is going to play?

A pretty good Alabama (10-2) team finished fourth in the final BCS standings, but there was a pretty significant dropoff in talent between the third-place Huskers and fourth-place Tide.

So are you going to have Florida State play an Alabama team they most likely would have beaten handily, while having Virginia Tech and Nebraska play what would have most likely been a blood-letting? That’s not particularly fair to the Hokies or Huskers.

2000

Final standings:
1. Oklahoma 12-0
2. Florida State 11-1
3. Miami 10-1
4. Washington 10-1
5. Virginia Tech 10-1
6. Oregon State 10-1

Now most people would say this is a year that the plus-one model would make a ton of sense, and to a large extent I agree with that. Florida State shouldn’t have been in the title game in front of Miami, and Washington had a case to be in in front of both of them since the Huskies beat Miami in September (the Hurricanes would not lose again until Jan. 3, 2003).

So matching up Oklahoma (who sort of peaked in October and coasted to the finish line in winning the title that year) with Washington and Florida State with Miami would have made sense, except you also had Virginia Tech (whose lone loss was at Miami with a banged-up Michael Vick) and Oregon State (whose lone loss was at Washington) sitting there.

Now I guess you could say they had their chance, but both proved in bowl games (Tech with a 41-20 win over a very good Clemson team in the Gator Bowl and Oregon State with a 41-9 beatdown of Notre Dame in the Fiesta) that they belonged among the nation’s elite.

Overall, however, the plus-one model would’ve worked that year and provided three incredibly entertaining games.

2001

Final standings
1. Miami 11-0
2. Nebraska 11-1
3. Colorado 10-2
4. Oregon 10-1

This is a year that the plus one would have “worked,” at least when it comes to the final standings, but wouldn’t exactly have been very fair, or right.

Colorado got super hot toward the end of the year and destroyed Nebraska in the regular season finale and then defeated a good Texas team in the Big XII title game.

The Cornhuskers wound up sneaking back into the title game (without winning their division, let alone their conference) and were blown out by Miami, one of the three or four best college football teams ever.

But, if you really want to get technical, the four best teams that season were probably Miami, Oregon, Florida and Texas. The Gators were unable to win their division due to upset losses at Auburn and vs. Tennessee (both games they were missing running back Earnest Graham) and Texas pulled their annual Red River choke job vs. Oklahoma and lost to Colorado in the title game.

And, in all honesty, the Hurricanes were so much better than everyone else they probably shouldn’t have even had to play anybody.

2002

Final standings:
1. Miami 12-0
2. Ohio State 13-0
3. Georgia 12-1
4. USC 10-2
5. Iowa 11-1

This is a year it would’ve been pretty hard to try to make Miami and Ohio State play an extra game before playing each other, but there were pretty good cases to make for Georgia, USC and Iowa.

The Hawkeyes had won eight or nine in a row after dropping an early-season game at Iowa State (who was playing well at the time before completely falling apart at midseason) and hadn’t played Ohio State in the regular season. Georgia had gone on the road and beaten a good Alabama team and a pretty good Auburn team, but lost to an out-manned Florida team coached by Ron Zook. USC had struggled early before closing out the season with impressive blowouts of UCLA and Notre Dame.

Most assumed the Hawkeyes were right up there with Ohio State, but USC torched them, 38-17, in the Orange Bowl that year.

So you’d have to leave one of those teams out (it most likely would have been USC) if you were to do a plus-one, but it really wouldn’t even be needed that year.

2003

Final standings:

1. Oklahoma 12-1
2. LSU 12-1
3. USC 11-1

Boy has this year been a cause for much wailing and gnashing of teeth, so I won’t rehash all of it. But it was pretty clear by early November when Miami was knocked out of the picture that Oklahoma, LSU and USC were the three best teams in the nation. In fact, many - myself included - were ready to anoint the Sooners the best team of all time at one point. Then Oklahoma got blown out by Kansas State in the Big XII title game (that just keeps coming up doesn’t it?) and somehow still kept the No. 1 ranking, leaving USC out.

A lot of pundits were trying to say Michigan (10-2) belonged up there with the top three teams (as pundits often do whenever Michigan is mildly good), but USC pounded the Wolverines in the Rose Bowl, proving they didn’t belong.

So odds are Michigan (who was fourth in the final BCS standings) would have made it there, but they didn’t belong and would’ve just given Oklahoma an easy whipping boy while LSU and USC slugged it out.

2004

Final standings:
1. USC 12-0
2. Oklahoma 12-0
3. Auburn 12-0
4. Texas 10-1
5. California 10-1
6. Utah 11-0

This would’ve been a tremendously difficult year to find that fourth team.

Texas had a very good football team, but Vince Young hadn’t come into his own yet at the time (he would in a Rose Bowl win over Michigan that year) and they barely snuck into the BCS thanks to some politicking by Mack Brown. California was also very strong, but how strong is anyone’s guess. They gave USC a tough time in the L.A. Coliseum and really didn’t beat anyone else of any significance, and then lost in the Holiday Bowl to Texas Tech while moping for being left out of the BCS.

Utah went undefeated in Urban Meyer’s final year there, but they really weren’t anywhere near the class of USC, Oklahoma and Auburn.

So again, you would’ve been left with the Nos. 2 and 3 teams playing a tremendously tough game while the No. 1 team got a fairly easy time of it.

2005

1. USC 12-0
2. Texas 12-0
3. Penn State 10-1

There really wasn’t a need for a plus-one in 2005. USC and Texas were both so far superior to Penn State it really doesn’t even bear mentioning, and no one else was incredibly deserving of being there. But if there were one, it would’ve been a 9-2 Ohio State team or a 10-1 Oregon team (which lost to Oklahoma in the Holiday Bowl while moping for being left out of the BCS).

2006

1. Ohio State 12-0
2. Florida 12-1
3. Michigan 11-1
4. LSU 10-2
5. USC 10-2
6. Louisville 11-1
7. Wisconsin 11-1

As you can see, it would’ve been pretty difficult to determine who should be the No. 4 seed in a plus one from 2006, at least prior to bowl season.

USC showed it was one of the best in the nation in thumping Michigan in that year’s Rose Bowl, and LSU showed what it could do when it plays to its potential in a thrashing of Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl.

So, at least by my personal preference, a plus-one would’ve looked something like Ohio State vs. LSU and Florida vs. USC.

However, since these are picked before bowls, it most likely would’ve been Ohio State vs. USC and Florida vs. Michigan (I’m just going to assume LSU would’ve been left out).

And don’t forget that you had a very good Louisville team and a Wisconsin team that no one is sure how good it was since they only played two good teams (Michigan - a loss and Arkansas in the bowl game - a win).

2007

Final standings:
1. Ohio State 11-1
2. LSU 11-2
3. Virginia Tech 11-2
4. Oklahoma 11-2
5. Georgia 10-2
6. Missouri 11-2
7. USC 10-2
8. Kansas 11-1
9. West Virginia 10-2
10. Hawaii 12-0

Ah, 2007, you were a very good year.

Picking just four teams from the pool of those worthy of consideration would’ve been unbelievably difficult, and could have very well led to rioting in locales such as Athens, Ga., or Blacksburg, Va.

I personally didn’t think Virginia Tech was all that good (as they proved in losing to Kansas in the Orange Bowl), and had their been a plus-one I would’ve been stomping my feet for Ohio State vs. Georgia and LSU vs. Oklahoma prior to bowl season.

But West Virginia and Missouri proved in their bowl games they were pretty darn good, Kansas was one of only two teams in the country to finish with only one loss and Hawaii (the other team in that equation) was undefeated prior to its loss to Georgia.. Did they deserve to be there? Of course not. But they would’ve had an argument.

-----------------------

So basically what I’m trying to say is don’t think a plus-one is the answer to our problems, or even necessarily a better solution than what we have now.

And the plan the commissioners mention toward the end of that article I posted way up there about just picking two teams at the end of the bowls might even be worse.

And here’s the story about the conference commissioners rejecting the plus-one model.

No playoff for us, college football fans.

For the first time since, well, I can’t remember, I attended a sporting event with a ticket and not on a media credential. And it was fun.

My brother hooked my dad and I up with tickets ... actually, my brother’s fiance bought him three tickets for Christmas. Anyway, it was a boys weekend, and we took full advantage.

I took off Friday, and hung out with the guys on my back deck. Good times.
Saturday, we went golfing. Really good times. Although I couldn’t hit my driver to save my life, I still had a good time. And I didn’t walk, which is always, always a plus.

Sunday we went to Dega. We left out early to beat the traffic, and guess what ... we did. Seriously, on the way there and on the way back we didn’t sit in one bit of traffic. Jealous? I know you are.

My brother’s got GPS, and I don’t know what he did, if he tapped into some time-space continuum, but we zipped right in. It was glorious.

Our seats were even better. We were 19 rows up right at the entrance to pit road. We could see turns 3 and 4, the tri-oval and the start finish line. Plus we got a great view of the first (or last, depending on how you look at it) pit stalls. I’m still amazed at how those guys can change four tires in under 18 seconds.

The section we sat in was “Anniston” but I think it was a misprint. We were in, as the nice lady behind us said, “Junior Nation.” Actually, the entire Talladega Superspeedway is Junior Nation.

There was one guy in front of us who, and I’m not making this up, screamed “Go June Bug ... whaaaaaaaaoooooooo” and held up three fingers every time Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove by. I’m talking EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

And it got funnier every single time he did it. He was taking it so seriously, but even the die-hard Junior fans behind us were cracking up.

In all, it was a great time. No traffic. Good seats. And no sunburn. Extra bonus.

*** In 2009 NFL draft news (I know you can’t wait for that. You’re holding your breath already), Scout Inc.’s Todd McShay is picking Auburn University defensive tackle Sen’Derrick Marks to be the fifth overall pick to the Bengals. Don’t believe me, look.

Sen’Derrick is good. Really good. But the ‘09 draft is a long, long, long, long, long, long, way away. I could be the fifth overall pick by then. Hey, I’m eligible for the draft, it’s been three years since I was in high school.

Not for any particular reason other than the fact that it got over in a reasonable amount of time.

A year after the first round took somewhere around seven hours, the entire first and second rounds got over in just a little more than five hours thanks to commissioner Roger Goodell’s new time limits.

It was glorious.

There’s something to be said for picks coming pretty quickly after each other and keeping the action flowing, and when that happens we also don’t have to listen to the ESPN talking heads quite as much (other than Kiper, he can talk as much as he wants as far as I’m concerned).

The Aarons 499 is starting right about now in Talladega, and the O-A News’ own Tom Peavy is there to provide coverage on this very blog. I’ll let him do most of the talking there, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say Tony Stewart takes the checkered flag in this one.

More coming later this afternoon.