I hate to disagree with The Lawgiver so soon after I felt moved to respond to an observation by Brian that I believed was unfairly critical . . . particularly when the source of our present difference of opinion is Brian's insistence upon saying bad things about the Florida Gators, which I wholeheartedly support.

However, in his outrage over the B.C.S.'s decision to avoid the very rematch that Brian opposed at least as recently as November 20, he has tarred the opposition with too broad a brush and a more measured retort is warranted.

I understand why Brian is irate, but that is no reason to describe Georgia as "a team that sucks butt" and hold it against the Sunshine State that it sided with the Confederacy, nor is it justification for characterizing my region as "the charmingly insecure and paranoid [S]outh" and criticizing the S.E.C. for having "pretty records because of the Sun Belt [w]orld tour and excessive media hype" while offering assurances that, in the future, he will "incessantly argue against any SEC team ever making the title game again."

As the great-great-grandson of a Confederate veteran, I resent the implication that a state's position on important Constitutional questions in the mid-19th century ought to be held against it today . . . especially when that inelegant animadversion is coming from a fan of the Michigan Wolverines, whose greatest coach, Fielding Yost, was the son of a Confederate veteran. Complex historical issues ought not to be raised and dismissed so flippantly, particularly where they bear no relevance to the topic at hand. (By the way, my great-great-grandfather was Private Isom Nathaniel Underwood Cook of the 10th Infantry Georgia Battalion, C.S.A. Since Brian's last name also is Cook, he may want to check his family tree before disparaging those of us south of the Mason-Dixon line for carrying "bad blood.")

It is true, of course, that S.E.C. teams schedule a disproportionate number of Sun Belt squads, which is why I openly oppose the presence of lower-tier schools on my alma mater's slate and agitate instead for games between Georgia and Michigan . . . games which Georgia's athletic director is interested in scheduling but which Michigan's athletic director refuses to consider.

In the meantime, S.E.C. non-conference schedules are improving and mine is not the only league whose members pad their respective slates with patsies. The Sun Belt is to the S.E.C. what the M.A.C. is to the Big Ten and the Midwestern B.C.S. conference is not above bringing in weak sisters, as evidenced by this season's Akron-Penn State, Ball State-Indiana, Ball State-Michigan, Ball State-Purdue, Bowling Green-Ohio State, Bowling Green-Wisconsin, Buffalo-Wisconsin, Central Michigan-Illinois, Central Michigan-Michigan, Eastern Illinois-Illinois, Eastern Michigan-Michigan State, Eastern Michigan-Northwestern, Idaho-Michigan State, Indiana-Southern Illinois, Indiana State-Purdue, Indiana-Western Michigan, Iowa-Montana, Iowa-Northern Illinois, Kent State-Minnesota, Miami (Ohio)-Northwestern, Miami (Ohio)-Purdue, Minnesota-North Dakota State, Minnesota-Temple, New Hampshire-Northwestern, Northern Illinois-Ohio State, Penn State-Temple, Penn State-Youngstown State, San Diego State-Wisconsin, and Western Illinois-Wisconsin tussles. I share Brian's view that the S.E.C. is not appreciably stronger, top to bottom, than the Big Ten, Big 12, or Pac-10 this year, but we all live in glass houses where non-conference scheduling is concerned.

On Monday, Brian lashed out at the "idiots [who] decide[d] that my 11-1 team doesn't deserve to go to the national championship game because there's a much worse 12-1 team that had the good fortune to play in a conference without Ohio State." That is a very different Brian Cook from the one whose reaction to the most recent Michigan-Ohio State game was as follows:

As I wrote on November 19:

The following week, my top four changed, as I moved the Trojans to No. 2 and the Wolverines to No. 3. The Buckeyes and the Gators remained first and fourth, respectively. I explained the advancement of the Men of Troy in this manner:

While I will rise to the defense of the Southeastern Conference whenever it is criticized unfairly, I respect other conferences and, just as Brian has grown tired of hearing S.E.C. fans' claims of bias, I am becoming weary of hearing knee-jerk expressions of prejudice against fans and teams from my region of the country offered by folks who ought to know from reading Dawg Sports that their sweeping generalizations are erroneous overgeneralizations.

Reasonable college football fans may differ over which team most deserves the right to challenge Ohio State for the national title, as evidenced by the results of a recent poll question, but many of us who ranked Florida ahead of Michigan did so as part of a concerted effort to rank teams according to their resumes.

Earlier in the year, Brian wrote of me that "Kyle's ballot is either the work of deep reconsideration or general jumpiness." While I will confess to a certain degree of general jumpiness, I try to make the changes in my BlogPoll ballot from week to week the results of deep reconsideration and I hope I (and my fellow S.E.C. fans) are entitled to the benefit of the doubt whenever such adjustments are made to account for new information.

In his defense, Brian admitted beforehand that he was "too angry to make much sense," so I don't hold his series of screeds against him and, despite his claims to the contrary, I remain confident that, when Mark Richt guides the Bulldogs to an undefeated season within the next four or five years, anti-S.E.C. bias will not lead Brian to rank the Red and Black fifth on his BlogPoll ballot in order to torpedo Georgia's chances at a national title. (By the way, I agree with Brian that the BlogPoll is more reputable and respectable than the Harris Poll and I enthusiastically support the replacement of the latter with the former as a component of the B.C.S. formula.)

The arguments in favor of Michigan are sound ones and I am not at all certain that the Gators would beat the Wolverines on a neutral field. However, there were valid and compelling reasons for moving the Orange and Blue ahead of the Maize and Blue following the Gators' S.E.C. championship game victory over the Razorbacks and what is called for here is respectful disagreement that focuses on the matter at hand, not a sequence of wildly flailing tirades that slander indiscriminately whole conferences, fan bases, regions, and peoples, all of whom are innocent bystanders . . . and to all of whom, incidentally, the reasonable, rational, Gator-hating, conscientious BlogPoll voter who authors Dawg Sports proudly belongs.

Go 'Dawgs!