The big 2014 SEC football countdown, from Kentucky to Alabama

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Technically, Alabama did regress in 2013. If you rank all of the FBS teams from 2005 to 2013 using the F/+ ratings, the 2011 Crimson Tide rank No. 1 and the 2012 Tide rank No. 2. The 2013 Tide rank a lowly seventh.

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LSU football has become almost automated. Blue-chip athletes overwhelm shaky opponents. The LSU defense controls opposing spread offenses better than most. The Tigers run the ball a lot. Les Miles says strange things to the press. And at the end of the season, LSU has won 10+ games and finished in the AP top 15.

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The one constant among college stars: they always leave. Billy Cannon left LSU. Archie Manning left Ole Miss. Herschel Walker left Georgia. Bo Jackson left Auburn. Derrick Thomas left Alabama. Peyton Manning left Tennessee. Tim Couch left Kentucky. Fred Smoot left Mississippi State. Jay Cutler left Vanderbilt. Darren McFadden left Arkansas. Chase Daniel left Missouri. Tim Tebow left Florida. Jadeveon Clowney left South Carolina.

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Your chosen SEC East winner says a lot about you. If you select Georgia, you value star power and high ceilings; you see Todd Gurley blazing downfield and a front seven with Leonard Floyd and Jordan Jenkins making enough plays to counteract a (better-coached) young secondary.

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Florida finished 4-8 last year. Missouri finished 12-2. Missouri outgained Florida by 349 yards when the two teams met last October. Naturally, Florida polled ahead of Missouri at SEC Media Days.

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Through 13 seasons as Nebraska’s head coach (1973-85), Tom Osborne was a bit of a tragic figure. He had inherited from Bob Devaney a program that had gone 33-2-2 in its previous three years, with two national titles and a third top-five finish. He had embarked upon a run of remarkably consistent success; Nebraska won between nine and 10 games and finished between seventh and 12th in the polls in each of Osborne’s nine years on the job.

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Missouri returns an exciting sophomore quarterback, two-thirds of its three-headed running back, two wideouts who have combined for 1,000 yards in two seasons, 80 percent of the two-deep from an excellent offensive line, two of four excellent defensive ends, all of its defensive tackles, a former SEC Defensive Player of the Week at linebacker, a well-seasoned set of safeties, an experienced, powerful kicker, and a proven return man.

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The Power Rank’s Ed Feng, writing for Grantland, happily strolled into a hornet’s nest last week when he said Auburn was lucky in 2013. If you have a general knowledge of college football, SEC country, and the Internet, you can probably imagine what some of the responses to that were like. And because of my own general knowledge of these things, I know that the following carefrontation probably isn’t going to connect. But I have to try.

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Fifty years ago, Arkansas escaped life as second fiddle.

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It wasn’t quite as extreme, but Rice’s 2012 finish and Mississippi State’s 2013 finish had similar dynamics.

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We tend to think of the college football success and recruiting in a linear way -- one improves, then the other improves; if one regresses, then the other regresses.

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It’s become a rather common recipe in the SEC: new coach takes over, surprises the college football world with a great recruiting class, then waits.

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James Franklin was only at Vanderbilt for three seasons. It felt like longer. Franklin won as many games as Vandy had in its previous six years. He won as many bowls as the ‘Dores had in 52 years. He engineered as many top-25 finishes as Vandy ever had.

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We rank things in college football. We rank teams, coaches, position players, units, the temperature of coaches’ seats ...