A good SEC book as we await football season

Like many of you, I have been working through my summer reading list with hopes of making it through the dullest time of year to be a sports fan. My list is relatively short as I struggle to find time for recreational reading, but No. 1 on my list this summer was My Conference Can Beat Your Conference, a book about the SEC written by the great Paul Finebaum. It's very funny and entertaining with a premise that the SEC is by far the most dominant league in college football and always will be. It was written in 2014 and contains tons of great passages like the following one which I found amusing:

"One day it will happen. North Korea's Kim Jung-un will get wasted at a Sigma Chi party and give the missile launch codes to frat brother Dennis Rodman. Snooki will be elected the 45th president of the United States." (You probably don't believe it Paul, but we did worse.) "Maybe convergent plate Tectonics will turn the Earth molten and do us in. Whatever happens, I can guarantee you three things will survive the annihilation of the human race: the Kardashians … airline snack packs … and the Southeastern Conference. The SEC is indestructible. The SEC is virtually unbeatable."

As he makes the case, Finebaum tells many funny stories, including the fact that his name means "good tree" in German. He also acknowledges that to some SEC fans and to all fans of the Big Ten and ACC, the name Finebaum also means "Squid Feces." Throughout, Finebaum goes to great lengths to describe what college football means to SEC fans:

"Let's be honest: The South is basically a four-sport town. We've got college football season, college football recruiting season, spring football season and NASCAR. Five of the 11 states in the SEC (Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas and Kentucky) have exactly zero pro franchises. There isn't really much else to do but talk about college football."

Finebaum goes on to cite an impressive array of statistics demonstrating that the SEC is head and shoulders above every other conference. For example, he points out that the SEC has won seven out of the last eight national champions and nine out of 16 BCS championships. However, as the book was published three years ago, and although Finebaum would strongly object, I think the days of the SEC being so dominant in college football are over. Consider that in last year's bowl games SEC teams went 6-7, while ACC teams were 9-3, and Big Twelve teams were 4-1. The ACC won three out of five matchups with SEC teams in bowl games last season.

What's even worse news for Finebaum is that in this year's Amway Preseason Coaches' Poll, only one of the top 10 teams is from the SEC, Alabama (1). The Big Ten places four teams in the top 10: Ohio State (2), Penn State (6), Michigan (9) and Wisconsin (10). The ACC has two teams in the top 10: Florida State (3) and Clemson (5). The Pac 12 has two: USC (4) and Washington (7); and the Big 12 has one: Oklahoma (8). If you consider the entire top 25, the SEC leads with six teams overall, but the Big Ten and PAC 12 follow behind with five and the ACC and Big 12 each have four. So it is becoming apparent that the SEC's stranglehold on college football has begun to loosen of late. In fact, you could make the case that there wasn't a top 10 SEC team last year in college football aside from Alabama. Even Alabama's dominance could be attributed to one person: the great coach Nick Saban. When Saban retires (which probably won't be soon) it is likely that Alabama's dominance will begin to erode.