The SEC is still the SEC, and everybody else is still…well, everybody else. Auburn’s win over Oregon in the BCS National Championship Game on Monday night marks the fifth straight BCS National Championship for the conference, and the fourth different SEC team to bring the title home in the past four years.

Still, there are doubters concerning the SEC, and for the last three years it has been the same song and dance.

At the conclusion of the 2008 season, Sam Bradford and the Oklahoma Sooners were going to break the SEC’s stranglehold on the national championship. After all, they won the Big XII South, the so-called toughest division in college football. The Sooners had scored more points than any team in the history of the game. They averaged over 58 points per game and had scored at least 60 points in their last five.

Instead, it was the Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin show. The pair of Gators both went over 100 yards rushing against the Sooners. Tebow added another 230 yards through the air; Harvin was on the receiving end of roughly 50 of those yards. And that Sooner offense that averaged nearly 60 points per game?

Held to just 14 points against an SEC defense. The Gators outclassed their Big XII foe 24-14.

Last year, it was the Longhorns of Texas that took a turn against an SEC squad for the national championship. The opponent they were expected to victimize was the Alabama Crimson Tide. The Longhorns were expected to be a tough challenge. Alabama failed to show much explosiveness on offense throughout the season while the defense of the Longhorns had held all their ranked opponents to 14 points or less. The pundits declared that the Crimson Tide just couldn’t score enough points to beat a Longhorn team that featured future pros by the likes of Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley.

Of course, the Tide ended up dominating the trenches while piling up over 200 yards of rushing offense. Both Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson busted over the 100 yard rushing mark, and both scored a pair of touchdowns apiece. Alabama forced five turnovers en route to scoring 37 points against the Longhorns.

You would think that these experts would learn. At some point, realization must set in.

The SEC is just on a different level.

This year, the SEC had to prove it again. This time, the Oregon Ducks were getting love from all over the nation. Even though the SEC is known for their great speed, many had the audacity to say that the Ducks were too fast for the undefeated SEC champion Auburn Tigers.

An outrageous claim, but they continued. Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times started with the erroneous idea that the Ducks were faster than the best team from the nation’s fastest conference in a column on January 9. He argued that the “brains of the Pac-10 will overcome the SEC’s brawn.”

Had the rest of the nation only known that chess club nerds could bring down the all-powerful SEC in football, then I’m sure Bayside High from Saved By the Bell would have had Screech wearing the football jersey and Slater getting conned by Zack on every episode.

But you know Bill Plaschke, right? He’s the guy whose record on ESPN’s sports reporter game show, Around the Horn resembles that of opponents in BCS National Championship Games.

Yes, this was the year. This was the year that the brainiac, speedy ducks of the Pac-10 were going to bring down the big, dumb jocks of the SEC.

It didn’t exactly happen that way though, did it?

In fact, the Auburn Tigers were faster than the Ducks, and it showed again and again as the nation’s leading rusher, LaMichael James, and his quality sidekick, Kenjon Barner, tried to get to the outside. Before they could cut the corner, a linebacker was cutting their legs.

It showed when Oregon tried to turn their short passes to the sideline into long gains. Before they could break off into the open field, their escape routes were blocked by Tiger defenders rushing to the scene.

And yes, the SEC squad was still bigger than the Pac-10 team. There was no question that the brawn belonged to the big boys of the South. Nick Fairley dominated every offensive lineman he lined up against. He was a one man wrecking crew that was wrecking the hopes and dreams of so many Duck fans and SEC haters all over the country.

And the Pac-10 which pompously prides itself on being the politically correct, progressive thinking leaders of liberal America, flat-out got out-coached and beaten at their own cerebral games.

Chip Kelly never seemed to grasp that running the ball into the teeth of the Auburn front seven was a losing proposition. Despite averaging a whopping 2.3 yards per carry, Kelly continued to feed his undersized, speedy backs to the Tigers. They were like chum, and Chip Kelly just kept throwing chunks of it into the ocean to the tune of 32 rushes for only 75 yards.

Meanwhile, his quarterback was busy completing 67.5% of his passes for 363 yards and coming real close to averaging a first down every time he threw the football with a yards per attempt rate of over nine yards. Four different receivers had receptions that went for 25 yards or more. Yet, Kelly decided against taking several shots downfield against a suspect secondary, even though his biggest plays had come by attacking the Tigers with the vertical passing game.

But Kelly kept feeding Nick Fairley and Josh Bynes healthy doses of protein that came in packages marked with numbers 21 and 24 with some marked 1 for good measure.

Meanwhile, Gene Chizik and Gus Malzhan baffled and bedazzled the Ducks with some intellect of their own. Gus Malzahn says he has never lost a game when his team runs at least 80 offensive plays.

The Auburn Tigers ran 85.

Newton completed 20 of 34 passing attempts for 265 yards and a pair of touchdown passes. Most impressive is how he and Malzahn spread the wealth in the passing game. Seven different receivers caught passes for the Tigers. When the entire stadium was sure that Newton would carry the ball, Malzahn called the true freshman running back Michael Dyer’s number.

So while Chip Kelly can tout his cranial muscle on a couple of special teams trick plays, the Tigers dominated the offensive and defensive mind games. That’s right. The SEC was not only the biggest team on the field. They were not only the fastest team on the field. They outwitted those chemistry nerds on the West Coast.

Not bad for a bunch of dumb southerners, huh Plaschke? Get used to it. The balance of power ain’t shifting out west any time soon.