Georgia is in the SEC title game unless they manage to gack this weekend's game against Kentucky. LSU would have to eff up consecutive one-car funerals against Ole Miss and Arkansas to lose their spot. Given the unlikelihood of either of those events, I think it's safe to say we've got our matchup, folks.
And maybe this is just the homer in me talking, but Saturday evening, for the first time all season, it looked like the SEC East winner might not be merely an easily consumed snack for the West champion. If Georgia can play against LSU like they did against Auburn, they could be a full entree, one LSU will need to savor over the course of an evening rather than just snapping it up in a single bite.
In the meantime, here's this week's ballot. As always, the complete ballots will be tallied at Team Speed Kills on Wednesday.
1. LSU -- I don't know that Les Miles has the guile to let Western Kentucky score a rushing touchdown just to show up Alabama . . . then again, I don't know that he doesn't.
2. Alabama -- Considering how Nick Saban usually reacts the weekend after he's lost a game, only beating Mississippi State by 17 seemed downright neighborly.
3. Georgia -- TSK's Cocknfire got to the observation first, but I thought the same thing: Georgia's bludgeoning of Auburn was the first time we'd seen an SEC East team look like they wanted to win the division rather than being content to end up on top of the crap pile.
4. Arkansas -- May not be able to muscle their way into an at-large BCS bid even if they upset LSU, but I doubt that'll stop Bobby Petrino from trying.
5. South Carolina -- Georgia fans probably got a real juicy schadenfreude-licious belly laugh out of Steve Spurrier's comments on Monday: "I really thought before the season that if we could go 6-2 and beat Georgia, that would probably be good enough. But it doesn't look like it is." Thing is, most Georgia fans probably would've said that before the season, too.
6. Auburn -- They've been played close when they've won and have been blown off the map when they've lost. Winning record aside, they're not that much better off than most people thought they'd be around this point in the season.
7. Florida -- Raise your hand if you ever thought Florida would be sweating bowl eligibility all the way up until a Week 12 game against Furman. Yeah, my hand's not up, either.
8. Vanderbilt -- What's more bizarre: The fact that the Commodores are favored by a point over Tennessee in Knoxville, or the fact that it feels like it should be more?
9. Mississippi State -- Dan Mullen praised Starkville effusively at SEC Media Days this past summer, but Saturday night, as Alabama sent his team to a 1-5 conference record, he had the look of a guy who's ready for bigger job offers to start coming in.
10. Tennessee -- On the one hand, you can't blame Derek Dooley for the personnel situation he inherited, nor for the injuries his team's been wracked with this season. But there's no sugarcoating a home loss to Vandy.
11. Kentucky -- Losing 38-8 to Vanderbilt was Kentucky's way of saying that while they're terrible at most aspects of football, they're money on two-point conversions.
12. Ole Miss -- Short of sending the Pride of the South Band out at halftime to spell out "WHATEVS," you couldn't present a clearer picture of just completely giving up than what the Rebels put on the field against Louisiana Tech.