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This is an opinion column.

There’s a national college football museum in Atlanta, and it’s wonderful, but really the greatest shrine to this sport is still waiting to be built.

Somewhere in the Deep South, there needs to be a museum dedicated solely to the preservation of history that has been made in the Western Division of the Southeastern Conference. The SEC West is going away after this season — and it’s not the grizzly behemoth it once was just a few years ago — but the influence of the toughest division in sports should never be forgotten.

Beginning with Auburn’s 2010 BCS national championship, at least one team from the SEC West appeared in every title game or College Football Playoff for 13 consecutive years. The streak finally ended last season. Starting with Cam Newton for Auburn in 2011 — the No.1 overall pick that year — the SEC West has had 85 players selected in first rounds of the NFL Draft.

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Where should the SEC West museum go? That’s not up to me. Personally, I would attach the SEC West museum to the Alabama-facing side of the FloraBama and place statues of Mike Leach and Ed Orgeron at the door. I’ll let someone else curate the place. Just put me in charge of the bar. To enter the SEC West museum of my dreams, everyone would be required to consume a Bushwacker in the presence of Coach Leach’s likeness.

The Latin words “EMO VEL MORI” would be hung above the gift shop. “Buy or die.”

College football is changing. We hear it all the time. What that really means is that the rest of the sport is finally adopting the pirate code of the old SEC West. Look around the country. For years and the years, the SEC West featured some of the best teams boosters could finance. That’s not the case in 2023 because everyone is paying the players these days.

Don’t misinterpret this as me complaining. The SEC West has never been more entertaining, and if I’m being honest then I’m enjoying this season more than most, but is it still the best collection of teams in the sport?

We need that museum to remember the glory days. Hugh Freeze’s cell phone would get its own exhibit. We could sell Houston Hot Nutts at the concession stand. Bronze Nick Saban screaming at Lane Kiffin and put it on display.

What does the future hold for the seven teams of the SEC West? This season portends a regression to the mean.

The harvest moon shined brightly over the Deep South this past weekend and now autumn is officially here. We’re entering the sixth full week of the college football season. For the first time in a generation, the AP Top 10 at the beginning of October is without a team in the SEC West.

Alabama (4-1), the best of the West, is ranked No.11. Ole Miss (4-1) is No.16, or one spot behind No.15 Oregon State (4-1).

No LSU. No Auburn. Arkansas is the SEC’s standard of mediocrity. The rise of Texas A&M continues to be a message board rumor. Oh, and future SEC members Texas and Oklahoma appear to be better than all of those teams.

These are strange waters for the division known to be the deepest around.

From 2003 to 2022 — 20 YEARS! — the AP Top 10 in the first week of October featured at least one team from the SEC West but usually two or three. It was a mythical run. But Alabama lost to Texas, and LSU was embarrassed by Florida State, and former Auburn coach Bryan Harsin lifted weights for two years in his doomsday bunker instead of calling recruits.

There’s not a single elite team in the SEC West at this point in the season. In fact, a case could be made that No.20 Kentucky (5-0) is just as good, but maybe better, than Alabama.

Maybe Alabama should hire Kentucky coach Mark Stoops after Nick Saban retires.

The Wildcats were favorites against Florida on Saturday and Kentucky delivered the groceries at Kroger Field with a 33-14 victory. Kentucky’s big win came one week after Florida had the SEC’s signature victory of September, a 29-16 upset of No.11 Tennessee.

Three undefeated teams remain in the SEC and they’re all in the SEC East. In addition to Kentucky and Georgia, No.21 Missouri is also 5-0. If Missouri knocks off LSU on Saturday, then we’ll know for sure that the SEC West is one too many Bushwackers over the edge.

What happened? How did the SEC West get so sloppy? Ole Miss’ student section rushed the field on Saturday after watching what basically amounted to a game of two-hand touch against LSU.

Right or wrong, I give a lot of credit to Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin for getting his team to rebound after collapsing against Alabama. LSU is this week’s SEC West disappointment. Tigers coach Brian Kelly is turning out to be, well, exactly who everyone thought he was at Notre Dame. Go figure.

The biggest game in the SEC on Saturday is No.20 Kentucky at No.1 Georgia. The best national matchup is between the two teams joining the SEC next season: No.12 Oklahoma vs. No.3 Texas. In the SEC West, Alabama’s visit to Texas A&M feels like a sideshow of a bygone blood feud that only kinfolk care about.

The SEC started with one division and it’s going back to the single-stew format next season. From 1992 to 2023, the league gave the South two divisions and from that grand experiment came the perfect distillation of down-home toughness, sweaty wads of Southern cash and grease-fire pride for competitive Saturday belligerence.

It was the SEC West, and there will never be anything better.

Save your artifacts for the museum. On second thought, maybe we can put in one of those vintage indoor malls.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, wild times and rum. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.