When it comes to football, the Southeastern Conference is always one of the best in the nation.
There are seven SEC teams in the AP top 25 poll, compared to only four Big 12 Conference teams, four Pacific-10 Conference teams and two from the Big Ten Conference.
For volleyball, it's a different story.
When this week's American Volleyball Coaches Association poll came out Monday afternoon, the SEC's lone school in the top 25 was UF, ranked at No. 8.
Though the Gators moved up two spots from last week, it still doesn't quell the idea that the SEC is one of the worst major conferences in volleyball, an idea that UF coach Mary Wise has been trying to quash all season long.
True, the conference had a record seven teams in the NCAA Tournament last season, but this year LSU is the only other team receiving votes in the AVCA poll. It doesn't look like seven SEC teams are worthy of being in the national tournament - only five teams out of 11 have a winning conference record and only six have an winning overall record.
The Pac-10 has five teams in the top 10 and six in the top 25, the Big 12 has four teams in the top 25 and even the Big Ten has two teams in the top 25, including No. 1 Penn State.
The weak SEC also explains how UF is the No. 8 team in the country despite only one loss, while teams like Texas (No. 3), Southern California (No. 6) and California (No. 7) are all ahead of the Gators with three or more losses each.
The SEC having no strong teams besides UF will hurt the Gators come NCAA Tournament time, when they will be given the equivalent of a No. 8-10 overall seed when teams with more losses get higher seeds. Those other teams have tougher competition - USC's losses came to No. 5 Stanford, No. 6 UCLA and No. 4 Washington - and thus get more credit when they lose close matches.
UF's lone loss - to an Arkansas team that is 4-12 in the SEC and 10-16 overall - makes the Gators look far worse than the teams ahead (and just behind them) with five or more losses.
The true test will come in the NCAA Tournament, when UF plays teams from other major conferences.
Until then, we have no idea of knowing how good this team really is.