It's an SEC West World and we're fortunate enough to live in it.
But who among these significant seven is the best?
That's to be determined in what's shaping up to be glorious October and November. For now, ranking the West remains difficult by virtue of the fact that most of these teams still haven't played one another, but we know a few things for sure:
1) Mississippi State is better than LSU. The Bulldogs whipped the Tigers on Saturday night in Death Valley. The 34-29 final score was closer than the game actually was thanks to a couple late Tiger touchdowns, but the Bulldogs were obviously the far superior team. Mississippi State is a darned good football team. I had been waiting to see what the Bulldogs did against a quality opponent before I bought in. I'm buying in now. Sure, LSU has some serious offensive inadequacies (its quarterback play is desperately wanting), but that shouldn't take away from what the Bulldogs did to the Tigers on their home turf under the famous Tiger Stadium lights. Dak Prescott may not be as precise a passer as Bo Wallace, but Prescott is so good running the football that he is every bit as dangerous. Prescott passed for 268 yards and ran for 111 more. That's hard to defend. Add to that an offensive line that may be better than advertised. State running back Josh Robinson ripped through the vaunted LSU defense for 197 yards. State's 570 total yards is more than any Les Miles-coached LSU team has ever allowed. The Bulldog offense is obviously very good, but the jaw-dropping thing is that Dan Mullen may have a defense to match it. Against LSU the Bulldog defense was positively stifling. LSU rushed for just 89 yards. The Tigers could do virtually nothing against the Bulldog defensive front. It was the most impressive win of the Dan Mullen era. My conclusion: State's the real deal and worthy of the Top 25 ranking it will receive later today. With an open date before hosting Texas A&M (Oct 4) and Auburn (Oct 11), I'd give the Bulldogs as good a chance as any team in the West to knock one or even both of those two Top 10 teams off. There's a lot of football to play between now and the end of November, but I'll go ahead and say that the Egg Bowl is going to be the most momentous ever. Ole Miss and State will likely be playing for more than a shiny egg-shaped trophy.
2) Alabama is worthy of its No. 3 national ranking. The Tide rolled up 645 yards of offense on what is usually a stingy Florida defense as Nick Saban's team beat the Gators 42-21. Blake Sims threw for 445 yards and 4 touchdowns. Ball-hawking wide receiver Amari Cooper snagged three touchdowns and had 201 yards receiving, and running back Derrick Henry rushed for 111 yards. The lesson here is that Alabama can do anything it wants offensively. Lane Kiffin's is a balanced attack, and it looked scary good against the Florida Gators. Meanwhile, Bama's defense made Florida quarterback Jeff Driskell look inadequate, holding him to just 93 yards passing and two interceptions. Ole Miss will have to be perfect and lucky to win on October 4th, which makes this year's game against Alabama just like every other time Ole Miss has ever played Alabama.
3. Auburn is beatable. Nick Marshall looked like a mere mortal in Auburn's 20-14 win over Kansas State. The Wildcats were able to hold the Auburn quarterback under 300 yards of total offense by keeping Marshall in the pocket and batting down his passes, and Auburn wasn't able to get its running game going. The Tigers ran for just 128 yards, a far different result than the 300-yard games the Tigers routinely posted on their opponents in 2013. Kansas State exposed chinks in Auburn's armor. Load the box, keep Marshall in the pocket and force him to pass and good things can happen. But nothing can help a team overcome Gus Malzahn's amazingly good fortune. Against Kansas State it wasn't a deflected pass off a defender's shoulder pad or a returned field goal for a touchdown, but the Wildcats did miss three field goals, and it cost them the game. Auburn won by six.
4. We've still got questions about Arkansas and Texas A&M, but some of them will be answered on Saturday when the Razorbacks and Aggies tee it up at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. The Razorbacks destroyed Northern Illinois 52-14, which may not sound like a big deal, but the Huskies entered the game 3-0 with wins against UNLV and Northwestern. They were a decent team that Arkansas absolutely flattened. The more I see of Arkansas the more I like. Brett Bielema's team didn't rush for 1,000 yards against the Huskies, opting for a more balanced attach (200 yards passing, 200 yards rushing). Bielema likely wanted to give his quarterback some more reps and rest his running backs in preparation for Texas A&M. The Aggies were 58-6 winners over SMU on Saturday. Next week you can count on seeing heavy doses of Arkansas running backs off tackle. Will A&M be able to stop them? If not I could see Arkansas pulling the upset. Ball control may be the only antidote to Kevin Sumlin's poisonous aerial assault.
5. And in non-SEC West news, the SEC East is garbage. Seriously. Florida didn't belong in the stadium with Alabama. South Carolina made what we know to be an atrociously bad Vanderbilt team look pretty good, and Georgia lost to South Carolina just last week. Mizzou lost to one of the worst teams in the Big Ten (Indiana) on its home turf. How do you pick a winner from that group? In the SEC East, there are no winners. Only losers.