It's hard to put an exact time frame on when an athlete becomes a cultural figure who transcends their sport. Usually, the honor -- if it really is an honor -- results from a series of events or a general persona.

For Tim Tebow, "The Promise" was one of those moments. Tebow, considered by some (including his head coach) to be the greatest player of his generation if not of all time, was already on his way to iconic status when the Florida Gators lost to Ole Miss in September 2008. But the same tears that would earn him so much scorn after the 2009 SEC Championship Game helped make The Promise so effective, and helped propel it into college football lore.

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If there are bowl games named after cities and small states being played by mediocre mid-major teams, it must be mid-December. And here we have the first three contests of the post season, played in beautiful Albuquerque, scenic St. Petersburg and almost sorta kinda rebuilt New Orleans.

These will get longer as we get to bowl games played by teams that you actually, you know, want to see play as opposed to teams you'll watch because it's college football and it's on television.

SATURDAY

New Mexico Bowl, 4:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
Fresno State vs. Wyoming

Yes, Wyoming is in a bowl game this year. No, Tennessee fans, that doesn't make it look any better that you lost to them last year.

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First things first. Because of an obvious software glitch, your humble correspondent did not win the Team Speed Kills Challenge. Or it could be because I forgot to vote a few times this year. Either way, shelby924 is the winner of the regular season contest. Congratulations.

Now we have the Team Speed Kills Bowl Challenge. The group number is 38846 and the password again is secspeed.

Full standings from the season:

Rank	Pick Set Name	Total Points	W-L
1	shelby924	1507	144-114
2	Leftover Hotdog	1490	136-122
3	Skigator93	1468	141-117

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VIC KOENNING / GEORGIA DC SEARCH

Joe Schad's Twitter says Georgia comes up short on another defensive coordinator choice
Vic Koenning is going to stay at Illinois. We think. Or at least he thinks, subject to the next time he changes his mind.

If not, it would make one whale of a press conference
Kind of like a wedding where the bride doesn't show up.

Hale about Koenning
A look at some of the maneuvering that preceded the apparent rejection of Georgia's offer.

OTHER NEWS

Complimenting what?
Boy Wonder talks about the NCAA inquiry during pre-bowl festivities in Atlanta.

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TUESDAY: What a Decade It's Been; Mike Price's Trip to Pensacola WEDNESDAY: The Zook Experiment; Georgia Hires Mark Richt

No one expected much of a game when the Kentucky Wildcats met the Arkansas Razorbacks on Nov. 1, 2003. Both teams were about .500, Arkansas at 4-3 and Kentucky at 4-4. UK's victories came against Murray State, Indiana, Ohio and Mississippi State -- in other words, their schedule was more difficult back then than it is now. Arkansas had lost three straight to Auburn, Florida and Ole Miss after winning its first four games. A dramatic win against Texas seemed like a long time ago as the Hogs traveled to Lexington.

It didn't look like much of a game at halftime, either. Arkansas had a 21-7 lead, with Kentucky's lone touchdown having come on a blocked punt. But Kentucky outscored Arkansas 17-3 in the second half to force overtime.

What followed made the contest one of the most exciting and exhausting games in college football.

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Is anybody left?
More Florida assistants are being considered for jobs in other places.

Three members on the staff -- quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler, cornerbacks coach Vance Bedford and new wide receivers coach Zach Azzanni -- are on the candidate list for head-coaching openings at two different schools. ...

Azzanni, hired last Friday to replace Billy Gonzales on the UF staff, is considered a possible strong candidate for the head-coaching job at the school he just left -- Central Michigan. That job came open Wednesday.

Look on the bright side, Gators fans: Nobody is trying to hire Steve Addazio yet.

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We've had some opportunities over the years, but when I found out that I was a possible candidate for this job, it was the very first time that I got really excited and eager about the possibility of making a move. ... It's a place where we feel like, not only is it going to be a perfect place to raise our family, but we think it's a place that we can win at the very highest level and a place that's very committed to being a great football progam and is a great football program.

MONDAY:  What a Decade It's Been; Mike Price's Trip to Pensacola EARLIER TODAY: The Zook Experiment

"This job" was the head coaching position at Georgia, and the man speaking was Mark Richt. Many Georgia fans shared Richt's enthusiasm about his taking the job, mostly because it meant the end of an 11-year period supervised by Ray Goff and Jim Donnan. Anyone with more football acumen than Elmo would have been warmly received after what UGA had endured beginning in 1989.

For a time, that enthusiasm seemed to be well-founded and overwhelming. At least until this year, when the first cracks -- however small -- began showing in the support for Richt since he took the job after the 2000 season.

Richt appears to have bought time to turn things around after firing three coaches largely blamed for the defensive and special teams disasters that caused many of the Dawgs' problems in 2009. But with the grumbling coming from some portions of the fan base, it's easy to forget just how much Richt has achieved at Georgia.

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AP announces its All-American Team
Alabama has six members of the first team -- RB Mark Ingram, G Michael Johnson, K Leigh Tiffin, DT Terrence Cody, LB Rolando McClain and CB Javier Arenas. That's a record; no word on whether Alabama will claim that as another national championship.

Florida placed TE Aaron Hernandez and CB Joe Haden on the first team. Other SEC names: South Carolina LB Eric Norwood, Tennessee S Eric Berry and Georgia P Drew Bulter.

Georgia fans will probably disagree with me on place-kicking, at least, but I don't see any really obvious omissions there.

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It had already been more than a decade since Alabama's last national championship when, after the 2002 season, head coach Dennis Franchione bolted for Texas A&M and the Tide decided to go West -- very, very West --

EARLIER TODAY:  What a Decade It's Been

to find its new leader. The university settled on Mike Price, the head coach who had guided Washington State to two Rose Bowls. To say it was a fateful choice would be something of an understatement.

Five months later, Price was fired without having coached a single game in Tuscaloosa. In between was a story that included strippers, Sports Illustrated and the largest to-go room service order in recorded human history. Even now, there's dispute about exactly what happened during a golfing visit to Pensacola that ended Price's "career" at Alabama.

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No doubt that some of you are going to carp that this isn't "really" the end of the decade because there was never a year 0 and so the first decade went from Jan. 1, 1 to Dec. 31, 10 (even if the years weren't marked that way back then) -- meaning that this decade actually goes from Jan. 1, 2001 to Dec. 31, 2010. Your humble correspondent had a father who never failed to point this out, and my response to you would be the same as it was to him: Your point?

We mark decades like this in our society, and so we will here at Team Speed Kills as we begin our look back at the 10 years that were. You'll see all the usual bests and worsts that you've come to expect in a series like this, as well as some of the key moments of the past ten years, from scandals at some of the highest-profile programs to head coaching changes nearly across the board.

It's been quite a decade for the SEC. No school had the same coach on its sidelines to end the 2009 season that it had to begin the 2000 campaign. One school is on its fourth leader -- well, sort of (more on that later today).

In the first full decade of the BCS, the SEC has already won four of the national championships under the controversial system and has a chance at a fifth shortly after the decade changes. At the beginning of 2000, no sophomore had ever won the Heisman Trophy; by the end of the decade, two SEC players had joined one from the Big XII in destroying that barrier. One of them joined the debate as the greatest player of all time.

The most recognizable teams in each division had been to the brink of irrelevance -- had become irrelevant -- at different points in the decade, only to have their dynasties restored by hired guns who hailed from the Midwest.

South Carolina and Kentucky were suddenly perennial bowl teams under veteran coaches who still couldn't match their past success at their new homes. One coach who had led one of the SEC West's teams for 10 seasons went to another and promptly had one of the more surprising seasons of the decade. Tennessee had two losing seasons in four years.

We'll relive some of that and more over the next several days. And we'll ask you along the way for your take on the moments and people who shaped the SEC in the 2000s. Because the only point in having memories is to share them with others.