Hogs fit the SEC just right.(THE PRESSBOX)

It's always interesting to hear the debate and discussions about how tough the Arkansas Razorbacks' Southeastern Conference football schedule is and whether or not the Razorbacks would be a better fit in the Big 12 Conference.

That's really an easy one for me and always has been. Having grown up in SEC country in Panama City, Fla., and having experienced the old Southwest Conference days as a player, it is a no-brainer.

During my five years as a Razorback linebacker, the only real negative was playing against teams that would have few fans and little enthusiasm, even when our opponent was playing at home. I'll never forget a game against Houston in the Astrodome in 1984 with 10,000 or so Hog fans in attendance yelling louder than whatever paltry number had shown up supporting the Cougars. Add in a similar situation at TCU, plus lukewarm crowds at Texas Tech and Baylor and you had four of seven conference road games that didn't have the sizzle factor you find in pretty much every SEC matchup.

SMU had some buzz with the Dickerson and James gang in the early 1980s, and certainly the traditions and crowds at Texas and Texas A&M were similar with what you'd find at SEC schools. Yet I still always felt that folks in Texas had bigger and more important things to dwell on than a college football game.

That's definitely not the mentality of teams and fans in the SEC. Football is king. For teams that aren't competing and progressing, you can sense a grumbling, a discontent, a restlessness. Because in the SEC, football is what we do. It's in our DNA.

Maybe it was inevitable because we were the only SWC school among nine universities that was not located within the borders of Texas. Maybe the passion and fervor of Hog fans were always meant for the SEC.

Let's look at more evidence. Take the 2009 Razorback SEC football schedule: Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Mississippi State and LSU. Are you kidding me? Now that is what you call a football schedule!

For coaches and players it's a weekly war and a fight for survival. For fans it's like a bowl game every Saturday. You can even throw in one of our old family members, Texas A&M, and this is a whopper of a schedule. But that's life in the SEC.

So, you can have your Big 12. I'll take the SEC and its 2008 total of more than 6 million fans who attended games, tops in the nation for the 27th consecutive season. The SEC's average of 77,000 fans per game was the highest in NCAA history. By the way, that was a whopping 14,000 more fans per game than the Big 12.

You can also include that of the top 20 attended spring games this year, 10 were at SEC schools, three were in the Big 12. And the coup de grace: The Florida Gators gave the SEC its third consecutive national championship (LSU, 2007; Florida 2006), its fifth title in 11 years of the BCS and its seventh since conference expansion in 1992. Keep up the Big 12 argument if you want, but the Hogs are where they belong--in college football's first family.

David Bazzel, who played for the Arkansas Razorbacks from 1981 to 1985, is co-host of "The Show With No Name," heard weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. to KABZ-FM, 103.7 "The Buzz."

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