Florida and Alabama have been on a collision course since, well, a year ago when the country’s top two teams met in what amounted to a national semifinal.

The Gators prevailed in the 2008 SEC championship game, 31-20, and went on to beat Oklahoma for their second national title in three years.

After three months of build-up and a couple of close calls, including the Crimson Tide’s come-from-behind win at Auburn last week, the moment has arrived: No. 1 Florida vs. No. 2 Alabama.

Florida coach Urban Meyer said the atmosphere at the Georgia Dome on Saturday would mirror that of the BCS title game next month in Pasadena.

“I can’t think of a bigger football game that I’ve been a part of,” Meyer said. “It’s not a whole lot of difference between playing in the big game and playing in the SEC championship. I mean, the way our conference does this to support crowd noise, this is every bit as big as the national championship game and we treat it like that.”

Florida and Alabama meeting for the second consecutive year harkens back to the earliest SEC championship games. The schools squared off in four of the first five SEC title games from 1992-96, including the first two held at Legion Field in Birmingham.

Besides the national title implications, Saturday’s game also features a head-to-head showdown between Heisman Trophy candidates Tim Tebow and Mark Ingram.

Ingram was held to a season-low 30 yards against Auburn before leaving in the fourth quarter with a hip pointer. He expects to play against the Gators.

“I think he’ll be fine. We don’t think he has a significant problem,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “I think those things are a little bit painful, especially when you first get them.”

Scoreboard

Alabama 26, Auburn 21
South Carolina 34, Clemson 17
Mississippi State 41, Ole Miss 27
Florida 37, Florida State 10
Tennessee 30, Kentucky 24 (OT)
LSU 33, Arkansas 30
Georgia 30, Georgia 24

DUI distraction

Five days before his team’s biggest game of the year, Florida defensive end Carlos Dunlap was arrested and charged with DUI early Tuesday morning near campus. Gainesville police officers found Dunlap’s 2000 Chrysler stopped at a green light around 3:25 a.m. Dunlap, the defensive MVP of last year’s BCS championship game, was slumped over in the driver’s seat and opened his eyes for a few seconds before falling back asleep when officers tried to wake him. He “performed poorly” on a field sobriety test and refused to take a Breathalyzer, according to authorities.

Meyer should be commended for suspending Dunlap indefinitely and holding him out of Saturday’s game, though it comes as no surprise considering the public firestorm he endured after sitting linebacker Brandon Spikes for only half a game following Spikes’ dirty play against Georgia.

“We’ve had distraction after distraction,” Meyer said. “This is a rather serious one, obviously, so it is a distraction. Sometimes this team’s found ways to get a little tighter in distractions. We've had a few of them this year.”

Draft analysts think the 6-foot-6, 290-pound Dunlap could be a first-round pick if he leaves school a year early after the season ends. Dunlap, a native of North Charleston, S.C., is tied for the team lead with seven sacks

Muddled masses

While Florida and Alabama were the class of the league, the rest of the SEC was the epitome of parity. No. 15 LSU (9-3) is the SEC’s only other ranked team this week after Ole Miss dropped out of the top 25 after getting upset in the Egg Bowl by Mississippi State a week after the Rebels took down LSU.

The conference ended the regular season with six 7-5 teams, creating a scramble for the spots in the SEC’s mid- to lower-tier bowls.

“It’s a soup sandwich, isn’t it?” South Carolina athletics director Eric Hyman said of the bowl picture.

It could be worse. Last year the SEC failed to fill two of its bowl slots when Auburn, Arkansas and Tennessee all failed to become bowl eligible. All three are going bowling this year.

A look at the SEC’s projected bowl lineup, which will not become official until bids are announced Sunday:

BCS national championship game – Florida/Alabama winner
Sugar – Florida/Alabama loser
Capital One – LSU
Cotton – Ole Miss
Outback – Auburn
Chick-fil-A – Tennessee
Liberty – Arkansas
Music City – Kentucky
Independence – Georgia
Papajohns.com – South Carolina

Head games

Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino took exception to two hits LSU safety Chad Jones had on Razorbacks receiver Joe Adams, the second of which knocked Adams’ helmet off near the goal line in the fourth quarter and drew a personal foul penalty for Jones’ leading with his head.

“That’s a pretty vicious hit,” Petrino said. “You know they hit him like that early in the game, too. So that’s two hits on that. You hate to see that on anybody.”

Replays seemed to show Jones tilting his head to the side before contact and leading with his shoulder. Both players had to leave the game to clear the cobwebs before returning.

By the numbers

25 – Consecutive wins by Tennessee against Kentucky, the nation’s longest active winning streak by a team against a single opponent.

339 – Georgia’s rushing total against Georgia Tech, the Bulldogs’ best rushing performance in nine seasons under Mark Richt.

.875 – The SEC’s winning percentage (42-6) in nonconference games, the league’s best since it went 32-4 in 1997. The SEC was 3-0 against the ACC last weekend, including wins by unranked South Carolina and Georgia over top-15 teams Clemson and Georgia Tech, the ACC’s divisional champs.

Quote of the week

“I’m very happy. I’ve really grown to not like Clemson since I’ve been here, so this means a lot,” — South Carolina junior tight end Weslye Saunders following his first win over the Gamecocks’ state rivals.

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