The SEC West is the best division in all of college football. The division is 31-6 this year, with all six losses coming at the hands of other SEC West teams. There have been only three inter-divisional games in the SEC this year, and the West teams came away with three blowout victories: Alabama over Florida (42-21), Texas A&M over South Carolina (52-28), and Ole Miss over Vanderbilt (41-3). In Power 5 play, Arkansas, Alabama, and Auburn have notched wins over Texas Tech, West Virginia, and Kansas State, while LSU knocked off Wisconsin. And Ole Miss defeated Boise State and Memphis, too.

Auburn, Mississippi, MSU, Alabama, and A&M all are in the top 10 of the SRS, and LSU and Arkansas are in the top 20. So what happens if these teams beat up on each other? Each school plays each of the other six SEC West teams. While there’s a good chance at least one of these schools goes 5-1 or 6-0 in division play, there’s also a chance we end up with a multi-team tie atop the division at 4-2. The actual tiebreakers are the typical boring type that you can imagine, but we need not restrict ourselves to the creativity capacity of executives of the Southeastern Conference. So today, I’m ranking schedules. Since this is not the tiebreaker that the SEC would actually use, you can think of this as how-to guide to rooting for people who have morals:

1) Auburn

The SEC East can be broken into three tiers at this point: Georgia, the ugly Tennessee/Florida/Mizzou/South Carolina/Kentucky tier — and then the tire fire that is Vanderbilt football. Each team plays two conference games against teams from the other division, and Georgia plays Auburn and Arkansas. With Todd Gurley indefinitely suspended, Georgia may no longer be a brutal matchup, but (1) Gurley may ^[1]Or he may not. be back by November 15, and (2) UGA is still probably the best team in the SEC East. Auburn also has to travel to Athens, making it the toughest SEC East game that any SEC West team will play in 2014.

The Tigers also have the toughest nonconference game of any SEC West team this year: Kansas State. And not just KSU, but KSU on the road on a Thursday night. The Tigers pulled off the victory, 20-14, so that hurdle is behind them. Auburn gets South Carolina in the Tigers other East matchup. While games against San Jose State, Louisiana Tech, and Samford are gimmes, Auburn has a brutal schedule even including those games: 6 games against the SEC West, trips to Athens and Manhattan, and a game against South Carolina may wind up being the toughest schedule in all of college football.

Oh, and just for kicks, the Tigers three road games in the division happen to be against what look to be the best 3 teams not named Auburn in the SEC: Mississippi, MSU, and ‘Bama. If Auburn goes 11-1, they are the best team in college football.

2) Alabama

Let’s be clear: there’s a gap in schedule strength between Auburn and Alabama. The Crimson Tide’s schedule is closer to #4 on this list than number one. That said, Alabama gets Tennessee and Florida in its cross-division games, and also played a pretty good West Virginia team at a neutral site in week one. FAU, Southern Miss, and Western Carolina provide three de facto byes, but that’s the norm for SEC West teams.

Alabama also catches a break by getting Auburn, Mississippi State, and A&M at home, with the road division games being against Arkansas, LSU, and Ole Miss. Of course, the Tide already have one blemish from that road schedule.

3) Arkansas

At 0-2 in conference play, the Hogs are probably not going to factor into things when it comes to the division title. But if Arkansas finishes 10-2, it would be an impressive feat. The Hogs have to play Georgia and travel to Missouri in SEC East play, and that alone separates them from all other teams in the division save Auburn. What the Razorbacks can’t match is Alabama’s top nonconference game. While games against Texas Tech or Northern Illinois might be tough in any particular year, both teams look to be very bad this season. Arkansas had no trouble dispatching both squads with ease, winning by a combined score of 101 to 42.

In addition to a cupcake nonconference schedule, the Razorbacks had one other thing going for them: the Aggies gave up a home game to play Arkansas in AT&T Stadium in Arlington. That gave Arkansas just three true SEC road games, although Texas A&M wound up coming back to win that game in overtime, 35-28.

Tied 4th: LSU/Ole Miss

Louisiana State scheduled three cupcake games against Louisiana Monroe, New Mexico State, and Sam Houston State, and the Tigers won by a combined 150-7 in those games. Not to be outdone, Ole Miss scheduled Louisiana-Lafayette (56-15) and Presbyterian (Nov. 8th) — and received Vanderbilt (41-3) from the SEC East. Ignore those three games, and each team’s schedule features three legitimate games outside of the division.

LSU:

• @Florida;
• Wisconsin (in Houston)
• vs. Kentucky

Mississippi:

• Tennessee;
• Memphis
• Boise State (in Atlanta)

On the surface, the Tigers would appear to have the tougher schedule there, but right now, Memphis has a higher SRS rating than Wisconsin. Is that a fluke or a product of a small sample size? Memphis blew out Cincinnati and nearly upset UCLA in the Rose Bowl; if Memphis winds up winning the American, that will look like an impressive win. On the other hand, Wisconsin just lost to Northwestern. On the positive side of the ledger, Wisconsin…. beat Bowling Green and South Florida? It’s too early to say, but for now, Memphis is a higher quality win than Wisconsin. By the end of the season? Who knows.

Given that LSU also gets Ole Miss at home, and I’d put these schedules at a push until we learn more about well, all six of the teams listed above.

6) Texas A&M

The Aggies SEC East slate featured games at South Carolina and a November home game against Missouri. So far, so good. But out of conference, A&M plays Rice (38-10), Louisiana-Monroe (Nov. 1), SMU (58-6), and Lamar (73-3). The only way this schedule could be any easier is if they had Vanderbilt as one of their SEC East games….

7) Mississippi State

There’s no such thing as an easy schedule in the SEC West, of course. But MSU’s six other games are against Kentucky and Vanderbilt in conference, and Alabama-Birmingham (a closer-than-it-needed-to-be 47-34 win), South Alabama (35-3), Southern Miss (49-0), and Tennessee Martin (Nov. 8).

The Bulldogs will have six very tough games on the schedule, Kentucky, and…. that’s about it. One way to look at it is you should root against MSU going 11-1 and winning an SEC West tiebreaker, because a team with a tougher schedule will probably be passed over. A glass-half-full philosophy would note that Mississippi State is Mississippi State, and the school already has enough bad luck timing one of the best teams in school history with the point in time when its division is perhaps its strongest ever. If MSU can escape 11-1, they deserve all they can get.  And perhaps the best view: Dak Prescott and MSU are a lot of fun to watch, and rooting for the underdog (which MSU most certainly is historically) is as college football as it gets.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an SEC West team to root for, I’d go with Auburn.  The Tigers — in addition to being insanely fun to watch — have both the toughest inter-division game and non-conference game of any SEC West team.  Auburn plays South Carolina at home in what is probably the 4th easiest game on the schedule.  Think about that for a minute.

Oh, and Auburn has to go to Starkville today and Oxford in two weeks, before ending the season in Tuscaloosa in a game that has no chance of matching last year’s performance (I think). Auburn will be a very worthy champion, and is the SEC West team most likely to get in to a playoff with a 10-2 record.  It’s not hard to imagine the Tigers losing a close Iron Bowl to fall to 10-2, but still impressing enough folks to get them to the playoffs.

That said, strength of schedule is only half the battle.  If two teams have the same record, and one team has the harder schedule, that doesn’t mean that team is more deserving; how they played and how they looked matter, too.  Today, we have three more outstanding SEC West games: Auburn at Mississippi State at 3:30, Alabama at Arkansas at 6, and Ole Miss at Texas A&M at 9.  What should your rooting interest be? If you’re a fan of chaos, you’re going to want to root for the home teams. That’s usually a pretty good recipe, anyway.