It seems like it’s been forever since the SEC East has been legitimately good compared to its counterpart in football. As we enter the sixth week of college football, one thing still holds true: The SEC West is superior to the East. 

Texas A&M, Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss and Mississippi State are all undefeated while not one team in the East remains unbeaten.  This shows the depth from top to bottom that the West has; the last place team has the capability to beat the first place team.

Why is it that we don’t see teams like Florida, South Carolina, Missouri and Georgia in the national championship lately?

The answer to that question is simple. Superiority. 

The last time an SEC East team beat an SEC West team in the conference championship game was way back in 2008 when Florida and Tim Tebow topped Alabama, 31-20. To put things into perspective, the iPhone 3 wasn’t even out at that time. 

When there is consistent dominance from one division for a long period of time, the pattern tends to hold, and better players choose to go to better teams. 

SEE ALSO: Ranking College Football's Power 5 Conferences

Not once since 2008 has Florida had a better recruiting class than Alabama, and most years since then, LSU is usually ahead of the Gators in recruiting too. 

As we delve deeper into reasons as to why the SEC East is not up to par with the West, we must look at the teams that are in the East: South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee.

With the exception of Georgia and sometimes Missouri, none of these teams have been extremely good in recent memory. One could argue the reason Georgia and Missouri usually look good is because of the teams they play in the SEC West.

Kentucky and Vanderbilt aren’t striking fear into the hearts of anyone, South Carolina blows big games, Florida’s program is in shambles and Tennessee hasn’t been good since the 90’s. Add on a few easy non-conference games and Missouri and Georgia are each, at the absolute worst, a two-loss team heading into the SEC Championship game.  

If the SEC East hopes to challenge its counterpart, the entire conference has to improve as a whole. That includes teams at the bottom like Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Every conference game these teams play has to be challenging, so when the SEC championship comes around, eastern conference teams will be ready to compete at the highest level.  

Reach Staff Reporter Bradford Evans via e-mail here.