It has to end, it has to end this season and it has to end in dramatic fashion.
The Southeastern Conference simply can’t be allowed to continue winning national championship after national championship. It’s not good college football. It’s not democratic. It’s old, like Blackberrys or four-liter engines.
Don’t get me wrong. You have to admire the level to which the SEC has raised the bar.
You have to respect the out-of-touch, over-the-top commitment SEC schools have made to football. In the middle of the worst recession since the depression, SEC schools continued to pour money into their football programs.
But it’s time to end this seven-year run that has outlasted many marriages.
It has to end like a Kim Kardashian-Kris Humphries divorce — messy, ugly and public.
And everything is in place for such a soap opera.
Not only is Ohio State poised to win it all this season, but its coach, Urban Meyer, has been accused of ratting out his former employer, the University of Florida, for alleged minor recruiting violations.
The plot has been hatched. Ohio State has to beat Florida — not any SEC school, but Florida! — in the BCS Championship Game.
The bad blood between the Gators and Buckeyes has reached Alec Baldwin vs. paparazzi status.
Meyer, the man who led Florida to two national titles, who turned Tim Tebow into a national phenomenon (did you remember to Tebow yesterday?), who did for acid reflux what rotator cuffs did for Dr. James Andrews, is the point man in this feud.
Meyer is a heckuva coach, there’s no denying that. He’s also, like a lot of the top coaches, anal, Machiavellian and possibly a little underhanded.
His Florida teams were loaded with talent and players of dubious character. We offer Aaron Hernandez as People’s Exhibit A.
Meyer left Florida after six seasons having compiled a 65-15 record including 5-1 in bowl games and those two national titles. He took a year off to get the acid reflux under control and re-introduce himself to his family.
Then, the Ohio native swooped in to rescue the Buckeyes, whose coach, Jim Tressel, resigned in 2011 after it was learned he knew his players were getting free tattoos, an NCAA violation.
Note: Sure sign that things have changed — players used to go for the cash, now it’s tattoos. What’s this world coming to?
Anyway, Meyer returned home in his first season and led the Buckeyes to a 12-0 record. The tattooed Buckeyes were ineligible to play in a bowl game or they might have ended the SEC’s run last year, although it would have taken a Herculean effort to upset Alabama, which is petitioning the NFL for entrance as its 33rd franchise.
Somehow, while healing the wounds from the Tressel scandal and coaching his team to an undefeated season, perhaps Meyer — or one of his underlings — found time to rat out Florida for minor recruiting violations.
The first rat-out occurred last season when an Ohio State NCAA compliance officer, who apparently was asleep at the switch when the Buckeyes were getting tattoos, notified the Big Ten office the Gators had engaged in illegal contact with a recruit.
The Buckeyes reported to their league office Florida had given recruit Jordan Sherit of Tampa a ride to Gainesville. The SEC and NCAA investigated and cleared Florida of any wrongdoing.
Recently it was reported the Gators had had illegal contact with Brooklyn running back Curtis Samuel of Erasmus Hall High in Brooklyn. Again, the SEC and NCAA cleared Florida.
This time, Meyer went on the defensive, or offensive.
“It is absolutely not true that I turned in the University of Florida,” Meyer said in a text message to a Florida reporter.
“Weeks after, I learned our compliance guy [without any coach involvement] forwarded an article to the conference office. This is standard procedure. Once again, zero coach involvement.”
Zero coach involvement is coach speak for, “I didn’t inhale.”
Some reports indicated Meyer “endorsed” the reporting of the minor violations. It doesn’t matter at this point what Meyer’s involvement was, if any. The Gators are all riled up.
There’s a Twitter account, “Urban Meyer Snitch,” which is getting hit up like a Vegas prostitute at a bachelor party. Florida sports talk radio has been besieged by callers outraged at this alleged petty behavior.
So all the players are in place: A great coach. Two elite programs. A win streak for the ages.
It’s got to be Ohio State-Florida for the national title. It’s got to be messy, ugly and public.