Dorm Report: SEC-ond to whom?

Philadelphia, PA (SportsNetwork.com) - We've hit the stretch run of the college football season and the postseason picture in every conference across the nation is starting to come into focus.

Roughly four games remain on teams' regular-season schedules, which provides plenty of time for a surge or collapse. Just look at what's happened in Oxford, Mississippi, where the Ole Miss Rebels have lost back-to-back games to slip from No. 4 in the first-ever College Football Playoff ranking to No. 12 in the AP Top 25 and out of playoff contention.

As is promised year after year, the SEC has provided some of the top teams in the country. But when the conference portion of the schedule gets underway, teams do inflict heavy damage on one another, causing significant fluctuations in the polls and in the CFB Playoff rankings. Again, see Ole Miss for an example.

It's already been the case for some of the favorite teams in the nation, like Alabama's loss to Ole Miss, Auburn's defeat at the hands of top-ranked Mississippi State and Georgia's losses to South Carolina and Florida.

But here's the thing when it comes to the SEC: Between the East Division and the West Division in the conference, there's a ton of disparity. The SEC West Division places five teams in the AP Top 25, while the SEC East Division has lonely Georgia as its solo Top-25 resident. And Georgia's ranking (currently 17th in the country) falls below all five teams that are ranked from the SEC West. Mississippi State, Auburn and Alabama make up three of the top four teams in the FBS.

Here's the next part: When it comes to crowning an SEC champion, the title game has to come down to one East Division team and one West Division team. Of course, that's the way it's always been, but, especially this season, the power index favors the West by a great deal.

In two weeks, Mississippi State will travel to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama, likely the best college football program of the last decade. You're telling me the SEC championship game promises to be more contentious than this meeting? Let's be honest, the real SEC champion should be the one victorious in this clash of the titans.

But that's not the way it's going to happen, although the SEC West Division is head and shoulders better than the East this season. Unranked Missouri currently leads the SEC East with a 4-1 conference record and three games remaining on its schedule - all very winnable. Trips to Texas A&M (possibly the toughest matchup left for the Tigers) and Tennessee (without starting quarterback Justin Worley) precede a finale against currently winless-in- conference Arkansas. Should the Tigers fall at any point, Georgia is the only real contender left. And the Bulldogs should be the choice to come out of the East Division anyway, considering they clobbered Missouri, 34-0, early in October.

Two SEC games remain on Georgia's slate - a matchup against Kentucky this weekend and a home game against Auburn on Nov. 15. Then it's FCS challenger Charleston Southern and the ACC's Georgia Tech that are left in the way. And with star running back Todd Gurley coming back from suspension, the Bulldogs are the team to watch in the SEC East.

Let's say it's Georgia and Mississippi State that compete for the SEC championship later this season. Here's a scenario:

If Georgia beats Mississippi State (again, just an example) in the SEC title game, what happens to the playoff contenders in the SEC West that all (hypothetically) finished with better records than Georgia? Will Auburn's chances of making the College Football Playoff take a hit because, if Auburn wins out, its lone conference loss came against a team that lost the SEC championship?

Maybe it's Alabama that emerges from the Mississippi State contest and takes possession of first place in the SEC West, and then continues on to the conference title game. Should the Crimson Tide lose in the championship game, what does that do for Mississippi State's stock come playoff time? The Bulldogs have remained unbeaten longer than all but two teams in the FBS, yet they (again, hypothetically) couldn't even beat the team that lost the conference championship game? Things could get pretty shaky in the league at the drop of a hat.

Fortunately (or possibly unfortunately, depending on how things go), the final four weeks of the regular season will start to see the race iron out a bit in the SEC, and we'll get a clear view at which two teams belong in the title game. Mississippi State plays Alabama and Ole Miss, Alabama gets Mississippi State and Auburn, and Auburn will take on Georgia and Alabama. Talk about a giant web of possibility. Even LSU, at 3-2 in league play, is a team to watch in the final few weeks. Maybe not as a contender, but certainly as a spoiler.

The bottom line is this: the SEC is the best conference in college football, but every league has some outlying teams that just don't quite stack up to the rest of the crowd. In the SEC's case, the top-end programs are currently concentrated in the West Division. But only one of those top teams can make it to the SEC championship game, where it must take on the survivor of the SEC East.

Whether the outcome of the SEC regular season and championship game heavily affect the College Football Playoff is yet to be seen. Right now, both Mississippi State and Auburn are in the top four, with Alabama as the immediate outlier. Considering those three SEC teams have an intertwined final leg of scheduling, it seems like a long shot for all three to make it in. But the unpredictability of college football is why so many fans are drawn to it, so let's sit back and watch as the drama unfolds.