Since the SEC began its conference championship football game in 1992, fans have had two constant complaints:

1) The game makes it more difficult for SEC teams to win a national championship.

CHARLIE RIEDEL / AP (ENLARGE)

Missouri is ranked No. 1 but must beat Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game to play for the BCS crown.

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2) The playing field isn't level because not every conference has one. Of the big six conferences, the ACC, SEC and Big 12 have championship games. The Big Ten, Big East and Pac-10 do not. And those who do not have a conference championship game, goes the argument, should be made to have one.

History has proven the first complaint to simply be wrong.

There have been 15 SEC championship games. In that time the league has won five national titles (1992, 1996, 1998, 2003, 2006). In 2005 Florida played in the national championship game and lost. Only once in 15 years (Tennessee's loss to LSU in 2001) has the SEC championship game knocked one of the league's teams out of a chance to play for the national title.

"Yeah, that may be true in the SEC, but how would you like to be Missouri right now?" Gary Danielson of CBS said of the No. 1 Tigers, who play Oklahoma in Saturday night's Big 12 championship game. "They have everything to lose and nothing to gain. These conference championship games are risky."

But it is a risk that conferences are willing to take because, in the case of the SEC, the game generates about $1 million per school.

And this idea that conferences without championship games should be required to have one? Won't happen. Can't happen. Neither the BCS nor the NCAA has the authority to compel a conference to have a title game.

"The premise of the BCS is that each league has the right to decide how it wants to determine its champion," SEC commissioner Mike Slive said. "We think it [the SEC championship game] is the fairest way to determine a true champion on the field. We also believe it is a great way to celebrate our conference.

"And when you look at the history of our conference, this game has helped [in the BCS championship race] a lot more than it's hurt."

It's a long shot at best, but the SEC championship game may launch yet another team to the national title game. No. 7 LSU (10-2) seemed to lose any hope of winning the national title when it fell to Arkansas in triple overtime last week.

But if No. 1 Missouri loses to Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship, and No. 2 West Virginia loses to Pittsburgh, the entire BCS will be thrown into chaos. Would the voters decide that an 11-2 SEC champion, whose losses were both in triple overtime, deserves to be in the big game? Would they move LSU ahead of a No. 4 Georgia (10-2) that did not make it to the SEC championship game?

"If both Missouri and West Virginia lose I think that is very possible," Brad Edwards, the BCS guru at ESPN.com, said.