An old football adage says defense wins championships, and for the past seven years, every college football championship has been won by the Southeastern Conference. 
But if the first three weeks of the 2013 season have been any indication, something has to give.
The SEC, a conference synonymous with dominant defenses and physical play, has transformed into one big shootout with points being scored at a feverish pace. The Alabama-Texas A&M game turned into a 49-42 thriller on Saturday, and South Carolina-Georgia produced 71 total points the week before. 
Offense is on the rise across the conference. Nine of 14 SEC teams rank higher nationally in points scored per game than in points allowed. Ten different teams are averaging more than 30 points per game. 
Even more significant, the conference’s elite are offensive football teams. Of the five teams that have a better-ranked scoring defense than offense, only Florida is ranked in any national poll. Two of the four others are Kentucky and Mississippi State, who are putrid. 
No SEC team nationally ranks in the top 10 in points allowed, and only the untested Auburn and Arkansas defenses rank in the top 20. For comparison, three SEC teams finished in the top 10 last season, including the national champion Crimson Tide who allowed the fewest points in the country.
The SEC has clearly slipped into Bizarro World. 
Alabama is still No. 1 in the polls, but Nick Saban’s defense is ranked No. 71 in scoring. Les Miles’ Tigers have a high-flying offense led by a record-setting quarterback while Steve Spurrier’s Gamecocks are led by the best defensive player in the country. 
No. 9 Georgia and No. 10 Texas A&M rely on dynamic offenses to carry the No. 99 and No. 108 ranked defenses in the country, respectively. 
Bear Bryant would turn over in his grave thinking about this madness.
Theories explaining the widespread offensive explosion normally center around some combination of the growth of up-tempo spread offenses and rule changes, making it almost impossible to play pass defense. 
Both explanations are contributing factors, but neither is the main cause. 
Texas A&M and Ole Miss have thrived since implementing spread offenses, but Kentucky and Florida prove that spread teams can be just as awful offensively as anyone else. Alabama, LSU and Georgia are every bit as explosive offensively running more traditional pro-style attacks. 
And the rule changes have made playing defense harder, but that has been going on for years now. The only new rule this season is the targeting rule, and that is nowhere near significant enough to explain the overnight change of the SEC into the Big 12. 
The offensive explosion this season is more of an anomaly than an actual decline in defense. The loaded 2013 class of returning quarterbacks might be the best we’ve ever seen. 
Consider the quarterbacks in the SEC. There’s a returning Heisman Trophy winner in Johnny Manziel, a returning two-time national champion in AJ McCarron and a guy who is going to end up the SEC career touchdown pass record-holder in Aaron Murray. 
Throw in quality returners like Zach Mettenberger at LSU, Connor Shaw at South Carolina, Bo Wallace at Ole Miss and  James Franklin at Missouri and there are more experienced passers around the conference than at any time in recent memory. 
That plethora of signal callers explains the offensive upswing better than somehow surmising the best defensive league in the country has fallen off in one off-season. Once they move on to the next level, as most of them will, the SEC will go back to being the defense-first league it has always been.