Arkansas football fans are excited, as well they should be.

The Razorbacks have an experienced, big-time offense and a young, improving defense. This season might be the team’s best chance to win the Southeastern Conference for the foreseeable future, considering that junior quarterback Ryan Mallett could leave after the season.

And Arkansas will show up on Saturdays with a team that can compete with most teams in the country, but unfortunately, the Razorbacks reside in the SEC.

I was watching Sportscenter on Monday morning when two analysts began predicting the outcome for the SEC. One of them was asked to pick the winner of the SEC West. I wasn’t paying particular attention to the question, but the answer made my ears stand. Auburn. Not Alabama, not Arkansas, not LSU, but Auburn. “There’s no way Auburn wins the west,” I thought to myself. I had believed, like a lot of people, that the SEC was down this year. You know, it ain’t.

After hearing the analyst’s comment, I looked a little deeper at the Auburn Tigers. They have seven returning starters on offense and eight returners on defense from a team that went 8-5 last year, and those 15 starters are the most from any team in the SEC. Yet perhaps the most important player on the team is a newbie. A transfer from a community college and a former Florida Gator, junior quarterback Cameron Newton will lead the Tigers spread offense, which is directed by former Arkansas offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn. The Tigers are good.

Defending national champion Alabama is good. Florida is good. Georgia is good. LSU is good. Top to bottom, the SEC is the best conference in college football.

And that hurts me to say. I don’t like giving in to the SEC’s dominance; I’m a Big 12 guy. I was born two hours from Columbia, Mo. I grew up in Missouri. Both my parents graduated from Mizzou. My dad even played for the Tigers. I have tried for years to argue the Big 12’s place above the SEC as the power conference in the nation. In the past few years I’ve had somewhat of an argument, albeit a weak one. But I don’t think I was ever right.

Now this year, the Big 12 might not even be the second best conference. The ACC has five teams ranked in the preseason top 25 this year. The Big 12 has three. (And with one of those teams, Nebraska, leaving the conference in 2011, my argument may very well be hit in the back of the head with a crow bar).

I know it’s said that preseason rankings don’t mean anything, but that’s all we have to go with right now. In case you’re wondering, the SEC has six in the top 25, including No. 1 Alabama.

So, once again, the Razorbacks compete in the best football conference in America, on and off the field. According the Scout.com, the conference had seven teams in the top 25 in recruiting for 2010. Arkansas was not among them. The Hogs sit at No. 35. Your best has to be presented at all times and against so many teams that have traditionally done so well for such a long time, that’s a hard thing to do.

But it’s not all doom and gloom; not every team in the SEC is of high football caliber. Mississippi State posted a losing record last year and Vanderbilt only won two games in 2009. Poor Vandy is even a bigger victim of circumstance than Arkansas. The only private school in the SEC has trouble recruiting – No. 54 by Scout.com – mostly because of their high academic standards.

The Commodores have better luck recruiting nurses for their graduate program then they do athletes for the football field. The good news for Arkansas: both teams are on the schedule and Vanderbilt has replaced Florida on the schedule.

Other than those two teams, and as it always seems to be, every conference game should be a battle for the Hogs. Arkansas is up, there’s no doubt about it, but many of their conference opponents are either just has good as last year or have gotten better as well. Not a good sign for the rising Hogs.

Even worse, their window of opportunity seems to be right now. If Mallet stays, the receiving corps comes back and the defense gets one year older, maybe that window stays open a little longer. But I don’t know how likely that is.

Arkansas starts the season at No. 17 in the AP preseason poll, a pretty good spot for a pretty good team. But navigating the SEC will be incredibly challenging, downright difficult. Do the Razorbacks have the talent to win 10 regular season games this year? Absolutely. Do the Razorbacks have the schedule to go 6-6? It looks that way.