With its 42-10 victory over Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, the LSU Tigers have claimed the SEC’s automatic bid to the BCS and are headed to the BCS National Championship Game.

LSU ends the season as the only undefeated team in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Tigers beat eight teams ranked in the top 25 this season at the time of their meeting, and ran through the SEC undefeated for the first time in school history.

Thirteen victories, almost all of which came in a national spotlight, gave the Tigers the exposure they needed and they delivered on the spotlight, allowing LSU to be the undeniable No. 1 team in the country. The Tigers even received a perfect score from the BCS in the last two weeks, as the computer rankings also respected the Tigers’ overall resume.

The Tigers are likely to face Alabama in the title game, a rematch of a 9-6 Tigers victory earlier this season.

This is fifth in a series of conference profiles as part of BCS Know How’s season preview. Today’s conference is the SEC.

Conference: Southeastern Conference (SEC)

Active Since: 1933

Current Member Schools: Florida Gators, Georgia Bulldogs, Kentucky Wildcats, South Carolina Gamecocks, Tennessee Volunteers, Vanderbilt Commodores, Alabama Crimson Tide, Arkansas Razorbacks, Auburn Tigers, Louisiana State (LSU) Tigers, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Mississippi (Ole Miss) Rebels. (12)

Bowl Affiliations: Sugar Bowl (BCS), Music City Bowl, Liberty Bowl, Chick-fil-A Bowl, Outback Bowl, Capital One Bowl, Gator Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Papajohns.com Bowl. (9)

2009 Results:
Conference Champion – Alabama
Conference Runner-up – Florida
BCS Bowl Results: 2010 BCS National Championship Game – Alabama 37 vs. Texas 21; 2010 Sugar Bowl – Florida 51 vs. Cincinnati 24
Overall Bowl Record: 6-4
Heisman Vote Recipients: Alabama RB Mark Ingram (Heisman Recipient); Florida QB Tim Tebow (5th Overall)

2010 Outlook: Like clockwork, the SEC has supplied a contender in the BCS National Championship Game every year since the BCS moved to the five bowl game format at the end of the 2005 season. And even more impressive, the SEC has supplied the national championship each of these past four seasons. Can the most-feared conference in the country make it five in a row?

Any conversation about national title hopes would have to begin with the Alabama Crimson Tide, who are not only the defending BCS champions, but feature three potential Heisman trophy hopefuls, QB Greg McElroy, WR Julio Jones and defending Heisman recipient RB Mark Ingram. Last season this trio, along with a classic SEC-style attack of speed and power tore apart the SEC during the regular season, and then defeated the seemingly untouchable Tim Tebow in the SEC Championship Game on their way to a national title.

This season, although Tebow is gone to the NFL, the SEC continues to feature the great conference depth from top to bottom, making Alabama’s road to repeat as difficult as one might expect.

Traditional contenders Auburn and Georgia are on their way back to the top of college football after some sub par seasons, while SEC strongholds Florida and LSU continue to thrive despite losing skill all around the field every year to the NFL.

Florida will be hard pressed to replace Tebow and may struggle early with a new quarterback at the helm of the Gator offense. This may leave the SEC’s Eastern Division — the domain of Florida during the Tebow years — up for grabs. Georgia seems to be ready to make that move and return to the SEC Championship Game after an extended absence, led by wide receiver AJ Green.

Arkansas and QB Ryan Mallet will challenge for the Western Division crown, which Alabama and LSU have held to tightly the past few seasons — and the race there could go undecided until the final weekend, when LSU takes on Arkansas at the Razorback Stadium.

2010 Heisman Hopefuls: Alabama RB Mark Ingram; Georgia WR AJ Green; Alabama WR Julio Jones, Arkansas QB Ryan Mallet.

BCS Know How’s 2010 Predictions:
Conference Champion – Alabama Crimson Tide
Conference Runner-up – Georgia Bulldogs
BCS bids – Two: Alabama Crimson Tide – 2011 BCS National Championship Game; Georgia – Sugar Bowl
Heisman Finalists – Alabama RB Mark Ingram

Valiant as it was, Texas’s comeback despite the game-ending injury to Colt McCoy was too little, too late, as the Alabama Crimson Tide captured the BCS National Championship 37-21 Thursday night.

McCoy and the Longhorns got a quick start after a Crimson Tide fake punt was intercepted, but on the very first series of the biggest game of his life, McCoy injured his throwing shoulder and was done for the game.

His backup Garrett Gilbert came in and looked shaky to put it lightly.

After scoring the first six points of the game, the Longhorns gave up 24 unanswered to finish the half, one of the scores coming on a 49-yard rush from Trent Richardson, who was featured heavily after Heisman Trophy recipient Mark Ingram came out of the game with an injury of his own.

However, a post-halftime revival and Jordan Shipley nearly brought the Longhorns all the way back, as Gilbert broke loose in the second half, throwing for two touchdowns, both to the Longhorn receiving star.

After bringing the game to within a field goal at 24-21, Gilbert showed his youth as he was sacked and fumbled the ball near the goal line.

Unlike McCoy, Ingram was able to return, and his one-yard touchdown run sealed the victory for the Tide late the fourth quarter.

Ingram broke the recent trend of Heisman winners coming up short in the national title game as he rushed for 116 yards and two touchdowns despite his injury. Richardson also contributed a 100-yard performance with two scores, as the Longhorn defense had no answer for the Tide’s strong rushing attack.

Alabama’s victory also gives the SEC four straight BCS national champions, a streak that looks more and more impressive as now three different schools have won the four titles: LSU, Florida (twice) and now ‘Bama.

The first BCS standings are nearly a week old. Teams now know the climb that faces them over the next seven weeks if they are to make it to the national title game.

That climb starts tomorrow.

Almost every single team ranked in the top 25 will face a tough in-conference match up this weekend, highlighted by four of the top five BCS teams facing tough road games in hostile environments.

No. 1 Florida will travel to Mississippi State, to face a Bulldog team that will be no pushover. And from the looks of the past few Gator SEC games, a few mistakes may send Florida tumbling down the BCS rankings if they aren’t careful.

No. 4 Boise State risks its undefeated record at Hawaii, never an easy place to claim victory, against the Rainbow Warriors in a tough WAC matchup.

No. 5 Cincinnati travels to Louisville to take on a Cardinal team looking for any sort of redemption, trying to reclaim the Big East glory that has become all Cincinnati’s in the past two years.

But the real test of the weekend will be the No. 3 Texas Longhorns, already with doubts cast about them already due to poor showings against Oklahoma and Colorado in two of their opening Big 12 conference games.

No. 2 Alabama, playing at home, doesn’t come up all roses, facing a Tennessee team looking for a way to make some national noise in coach Lane Kiffin’s first year.

But the game of the weekend would find itself in the most unlikely of places, Provo, Utah. BYU and TCU will face off in a battle of two of the three BCS busting hopes of the nation (the other being Boise’s bid). For TCU, a victory could spell increased support from both the computers and the human element. For BYU, a return to the top ten could be in order after falling following a loss to Florida State.

This week following the initial release of the BCS standings always presents intriguing storylines. How will teams that felt they have been slighted by the computers in the first iteration of the BCS iteration react?

Something to look for in the coming weeks is the effect of conference scheduling on the computer rankings. For those conferences with multiple teams in the top 15 (Pac 10, SEC, Big 12) the conference portion of those highly ranked teams may provide a boost in the computers.

For those conferences with lower turnout in the BCS rankings (Big 10, Big East, ACC, BCS buster conferences), the coming weeks may kick out the stool from under their high rankings, as many will take a shot from the computers, and see their averages decline.

But that’s all discussion for the future, for now, lets enjoy a weekend in which 24 of the top 25 AP teams are in action, and see just what the BCS standings look like on Sunday.

Maybe we’ll see something completely different.