As last Saturday's marquee matchups in Baton Rouge, Oxford, Fayetteville, Knoxville and Columbia showed, nobody does it quite like the SEC, where speed-driven, bone-crunching football is played in front of packed houses and is rivaled only by the high-spirited traditions surrounding the games

The LSU faithful roasted an alligator on a spit outside Tiger Stadium before their game with top-ranked Florida in Baton Rouge last Saturday. They made cardboard signs in the shape of a hand with the middle finger sticking up and the words HEY, TEBOW, HOW MANY FINGERS AM I HOLDING UP? ¶ They appealed to whichever saint handles brain injuries, hoping for heavenly intercession that would convince college football's poster boy to take more time to heal from the concussion he suffered against Kentucky on Sept. 26. None of this worked, of course. Did anybody really expect Tim Tebow to sit out a nationally televised matchup between two top five teamsin college football's premier conference? Lest anybody forget, Tebow's "different than all of us," as Gators coach Urban Meyer would say when it was over.

Florida won 13--3 before a record crowd of 93,129 at spooky old Tiger Stadium. The Gators won in all aspects of the game, even though Meyer admitted afterward that he employed a conservative game plan to protect his quarterback.

"It was like two sledgehammers going at each other," said Meyer, who still has one less win in Baton Rouge than he does in national championship games.

The same comment could have been uttered in Fayetteville or Oxford or Knoxville or Columbia, where SEC powers went at each other on Saturday in part of the desperate seasonlong struggle for survival in the conference. The Gators, winners of 15 straight games over the last two seasons, might be ranked No. 1 in the nation, but they might not even be the best team in the SEC. Or at least that's what 10 voters in the AP poll thought on Sunday, when they voted for Alabama in the top spot following the Cri...