Barrett Sallee: A Q&A With SEC Writer

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Barrett Sallee covers the SEC for Scout's CollegeFootballNews.com. He was nice enough to take a few questions from OGS Thursday about this weekend's huge LSU-Auburn tilt, his personal Twitter policy, the endless superior-conference debate and more. You can read his stuff here and follow him on Twitter here:

One Great Season: What do you expect from LSU-Auburn Saturday?
Barrett Sallee: It's not going to be like it was at Auburn last week, that's for sure. Not as many points, but still it should be a real competitive game. LSU has no offense, and Auburn's got no secondary. Someone's going to have to play above their heads, and I think it will be Auburn's defense. (LSU quarterback) Jarrett Lee's been better, but he's still Jarrett Lee. He has a tendency to throw balls into coverage. LSU will blitz early and often. But (Auburn quarterback) Cam Newton's been lethal when blitzed. Only when he has time does he think too much and try to force something. But when he's being pressured, he finds his receivers, and I think he'll do that Saturday.

OGS: That game actually begins a mini round-robin between LSU, Auburn and Alabama in the season's second half. Who eventually comes out of the West?
BS: I still think it's Alabama. It wouldn't surprise me if Auburn went into the Iron Bowl unbeaten, but Alabama has the edge in knowing how to handle big games like that. I can't say definitely who would win. Auburn is playing the best right now, Alabama is the most talented and LSU has been the luckiest. It's going to be a good battle, that's for sure.

OGS: If someone told you in the preseason that the most realistic Heisman candidate from the SEC would be Auburn quarterback Cam Newton, what would you have said?
BS: I would have called them crazy because the reigning Heisman winner is in the same division. Mark Ingram can still jump back in and win it. In fact, he was kind of a non-descript running back in the first few games last year. He can still jump in and win it, but Cam Newton is such a special player and he could be tough to beat if Auburn keeps on winning.

OGS: Is the trophy Newton's to lose at this point?
BS: No, because I think LaMichael James has a decent shot, especially if Oregon keeps winning. It goes to the best offensive player on one of the best teams in the country. So if Oregon keeps doing what they've been doing, James will give Newton a run for his money for sure.

OGS: Is this the year the SEC loses its stranglehold on the national championship?
BS: Yeah, I said that before the season. There are a lot of good teams in the SEC, but unfortunately for the conference, it will get cannibalized for a little bit. When you've got teams like Boise State and TCU who aren't playing as hefty a schedule, one of them is going to get to the national championship, not to mention that Oklahoma and Oregon are still undefeated.

OGS: Are you convinced by Oklahoma?
BS: I don't think a whole lot of Oklahoma. I think they're skating by. They struggled with some teams they should have beaten easily.

OGS: I was at the 2008 Ohio State-Ole Miss NIT basketball semifinals and, wearing an OSU hat or something, I caught an earful from Ole Miss people about the SEC. Why do SEC fans care so much? In no other sport does anyone chant "AFC, AFC" or "NL Central, NL Central." The SEC take is that it's just passion. The non-SEC take is it's obnoxious, annoying and about 10 other things. Where do you stand?
BS: It's not obnoxious in any way, shape or form. Other than a team's performance on the field, conference superiority is a huge factor in determining who plays for the national championship. Even if LSU looks terrible in going undefeated this season, they would definitely have the right to play for the national championship just for going undefeated. Right now, we're looking at this Auburn-LSU game this weekend as one where the winner doesn't just have the inside track to win the SEC West or the SEC overall, but it becomes the favorite to win the natinal champoinship based on conference superiority.

And you mentioned Ohio State. Look back to 2006 when some people thought Ohio State and Michigan should have re-played each other in the national championship. Instead, Florida played them and everybody thought Ohio State would beat them up pretty badly. But Florida dominated Ohio State, and that one game dictated four or five years of conference superiority. And we all know what happened the next year when LSU played Ohio State.

OGS: What type of postseason are you in favor of? Keep it the way it is? A full-on tournament? A plus-one?
BS: I'm in favor of a plus-one and that's as far as I'd go. But a fully-executed playoff would be significantly worse than the BCS. You could have a three-loss East Carolina team going on a run, and America wouldn't like that. Contrary to popular belief, Americans don't like underdogs; they like frontrunners. You can't have a tournament with 120 teams. I don't think anyone wants to see Troy from the Sun Belt playing Alabama in the first round. Keep the BCS the same, but just tack on that plus-one at the end.

OGS: Has Boise State done enough? Or are you still not convinced?
BS: They've done all they can, and that's all you can really ask for. But in college football, perception is reality, and the perception is that they don't play a tough schedule. TCU I think is a fantastic football team. I think TCU should be ranked above Boise even though (TCU) lost to (Boise) in the Fiesta Bowl last year. But Boise does what they can do. They try to schedule big-time games out of conference. They're a solid football team. The argument is, 'What would they do in a real conference?' But you can't really make that argument, because if they were in the SEC, for example, they'd also have an SEC budget with SEC recruiting and SEC facilities. So it's hard to say.

OGS: Back to Twitter, when will you engage people and when do you stay away?
BS: I do this with hate mail, too: If someone makes a salient point, and has a point that is debatable, factual, thoughtful, then I have no problem talking to them. But when they say, "you're an idiot," and start with personal attacks and get mean-spirited, it's time to stop. It's my belief that when people start calling you names, it's because they won or lost the argument. Either way, the argument is over.

OGS: And how have Twitter and social media overall changed the way sportswriters do their jobs?
BS: It's huge. The first thing I do every morning is open up Tweetdeck and start to read up on whatever's important to me. If I see something that looks kind of big and I don't know about it, then I know what else I need to read up on. It's a very personal way to communicate. Twitter is probably the biggest thing to happen to journalism since the Internet.

OGS: And who do you like to follow, in particular?
BS: Any of the SEC beat writers, particularly Wes Rucker, Travis Haney, and Jay G. Tate from the Montgomery Adertiser. Also, Michael Felder from @InTheBleachers is unbelieveable, and then of course the big-time national guys like @Andy_Staples and some others are really good.