The kings are dead, long live everybody else.

The mighty SEC West, considered by some talking heads to be the most competitive division in all of sports, pro or college, has been exposed this bowl season.

Seven times teams from the division took to the field, favored in each and every game. Five times they lost.

As the SEC weeps, the rest of the country cheers.

We should have seen this coming. Actually some of us did.

The division started leaking a year ago, when Alabama and Auburn lost their bowl games.

More evidence came Thanksgiving weekend, when teams from the SEC lost all four games to their rivals from the Atlantic Coast.

Many of the league’s old guard dismissed the trouble that weekend by saying all those teams were from the weaker SEC East. They were right, but also in denial.

When Arkansas and Texas A&M, the division’s worst clubs won their bowl games early, the ship seemed to have been righted.

But two days before the New Year real holes sprung open for the SEC West.

When Notre Dame, loser of its last four games, beat LSU in the Music City Bowl, trouble was brewing.

New Year’s Eve was no better. Upstarts Ole Miss and Mississippi State, both ranked in the top 10, were blown out in their bowl games. The two combined to lose by 54 points, which is almost eight touchdowns, if you are counting.

Suddenly all those early wins against each other that the rest of the country looked at as so impressive were exposed as frauds.

Then the unthinkable for SEC fans. First Auburn lost to Wisconsin and finally Alabama, the conference’s flagship program, was beaten in the national playoffs by Ohio State.

Two punches to the gut from the Big Ten, the very league SEC fans make the most fun of, proved the West was no longer the best.

For the record, SEC West teams have lost seven of their last nine bowl games, with Alabama and Auburn losing two each. It is likely that the division will have but one team ranked in the top 10 when the final polls are released.

The conference itself might just have only two, with Georgia joining Alabama. Meanwhile, the Big Ten will likely have three.

Worse, for the second consecutive year the SEC will not have the national champ after winning seven in a row. More shockingly to its fans, the conference will have nothing a say in the first-ever payoff champion.

This after some had talked, as silly as it was at the time, that the conference deserved three spots in the four-team playoff. In the end one might have been too many.

The truth is, those eight straight BCS titles will mean less and less in the coming years, just as any under the old bowl system could be easily dismissed. Playoff records will count most from here on out with it more than likely the postseason will only grow from here.

It does make things look like the SEC knew how to play the old system right to produce national champs. But now the game has changed.

Ironically, if the old BCS system were in place, Florida State would have finished in the poll first and Alabama second, with the two teams meeting for the title this Monday night.

After the last few days, Alabama would have been favored, so the SEC West’s title dominance could have easily continued. Since both the Seminoles and Tide lost semifinal games the old system has proven to be flawed.

What might be more disconcerting for SEC fans is how their teams lost. Their mighty defenses which titles were built upon were crushed.

Of the five ranked teams that lost, Ole Miss gave up the fewest total yards at 429. Yet the Rebels gave up the most points, 49, to TCU.

Notre Dame ran for 263 against LSU, Georgia Tech got 452 on the ground against Mississippi State, Wisconsin strolled to 400 over Auburn while Ohio State raced to 281 and 537 overall while taking apart Nick Saban’s Alabama defense.

Even LSU is on the down slide, losing three of its last four bowl games.

This is not to say the conference or divisions is done, but the illusion the old BCS system created that the only good football on the college level is played in the SEC has now been changed.

You can give credit to Ohio State’s Urban Meyer for making some of that change, since he took his game from Florida to the Midwest. But remember, he cut his teeth in coaching in the Midwest.

And, if you do that, then you have to say Saban, the man with four of those SEC titles to his name, and set up a fifth while at LSU, learned his game while the head coach at Michigan State.

This is not to say the SEC is done, for it is likely still the best conference in college football. But it does seem as if the rest of college football has caught up to speed, so to speak.

That fact may not make SEC fans happy, but it is good for college football.

More parts of the country producing title contenders makes for more excitement and more fans, especially with the playoffs now here. The extra interest will benefit all the teams and conferences.

The game has changed and the change seems to be good.

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Jim Gazzolo is managing sports editor. Email him at jgazzolo@americanpress.com

(MGNonline)