Why The SEC is Still King
Published January 7, 2025 - 10:10 AM CST
Notre Dame’s upset over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl sparked inevitable but predictable hot-takes around the country suggesting that the SEC’s run as the dominant conference in college football is over.
Urban Meyer proclaimed that the last two seasons of college football indicated that the SEC’s run of dominance is over.
Paul Finebaum went on Get Up to answer the same question on national TV.
The USA Today wrote that Georgia hadn’t won a playoff game since the 2022 season. Really? 2022? I know we just reached 2025, so it sounds like we’re even further away, but 2022 was only TWO seasons ago. Georgia missed the playoff in 2023 after their 29-game win streak was snapped by Alabama in the 2023 SEC Championship game.
Sure, the SEC Champion didn’t win the College Football playoff in 2023, and it’s looking like Texas (5.5 point underdog) will be the last SEC team eliminated from the playoff on Friday, but it is way too soon and absurd to declare that the SEC has been dethroned as the dominant conference in college football.
If we go back 20 years, there have only been six times where a non-SEC school won the National Championship:
2023 - Michigan (Big Ten)
2022 - Georgia
2021 - Georgia
2020 - Alabama
2019 - LSU
2018 - Clemson (ACC)
2017 - Alabama
2016 - Clemson (ACC)
2015 - Alabama
2014 - Ohio State (Big Ten)
2013 - Florida State (ACC)
2012 - Alabama
2011 - Alabama
2010 - Auburn
2009 - Alabama
2008 - Florida
2007 - LSU
2006 - Florida
2005 - Texas (Big 12)
This is an incredible feat that probably wouldn’t be accomplished ever again over 20 years unless there was a massive consolidation of power among two dominant conferences. Oh yeah… That just happened.
Although I don’t like to cite bowl records, especially in this new era of opt-outs and the transfer portal, I’ll add them for the sake of data:
AAC: 6-2
MAC: 5-2
Big Ten: 9-5
SEC: 8-6
Sun Belt: 4-3
Big 12: 4-5
CUSA: 1-4
Mountain West: 1-4
ACC: 2-11
Does anyone care about the AAC or the MAC? Of course not (lol ACC). This debate is all about the SEC and Big Ten.
Honestly, if you’d have given me two seconds to respond without thinking, I’d have said the SEC had a much worse bowl record than 8-6 just because of how the media acted as though the sky was falling when Alabama and South Carolina lost close, inconsequential games against Michigan and Illinois, respectively. And again, I don’t want to put a lot of stock in meaningless bowl games that have been devalued over the past decade, but if Ohio State beats Texas (likely), the Big Ten will finish 6-4 against the SEC on the season, giving it a winning record against the SEC for only the first time since the 2017 season. So far this century, the Big Ten has only had a winning record vs the SEC in three different seasons! Ohio State may prove to be the best team in the country, but that alone wouldn’t propel the Big Ten ahead of the SEC any more than Clemson or Florida State’s past titles propelled the ACC in recent seasons.
Is it fair to say that the Big Ten has caught the SEC now that they have added Oregon, USC, Washington, and UCLA to their conference? The Big Ten has a top tier that is on par with that of the SEC. The Big Ten now boasts Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. That’s four legitimate powers. The SEC has Texas, Georgia, and Alabama plus Tennessee, Ole Miss, and LSU somewhere in that mix depending on the year. However, the SEC is much deeper than the Big Ten, and it isn’t even close. It’s the bottom tier of the Big Ten that pales in comparison to the SEC. In the bottom half of its 2024 standings, the SEC has proven programs such as Texas A&M, Florida, Oklahoma, and Auburn. For all of the shade Alabama received for losing on the road to a “bad” Oklahoma team, lest we not forget, this was a program that dominated the old Big 12 to the tune of 14 conference titles in the 21st century. Oklahoma may have had a down year by their standards, but they are no slouch. Remarkably, Oklahoma and Auburn were viewed as two of Alabama’s “gimmie” games in 2024. Think about that for a moment.
Because teams aren’t always appropriately matched up or the game may not be as meaningful to one team, the most irrefutable data points when comparing conferences outside of wins and losses is looking at raw talent via NFL draft picks, recruiting rankings, and computer power rankings. While none of these three data points are perfect, they are all data-driven and slam the door shut on which conference is the best in college football.
Data Point #1: The SEC has been the conference with the most players drafted for an absurd 17 straight seasons!
Data Point #2: The SEC presently has 14 of the top 26 most-talented teams according to the 247 Sports Talent Composite which ranks each team’s talent based on high school and transfer recruiting rankings.
Data Point #3: The SEC presently has 10 of the top 20 ranked teams according to ESPN’s Football Power Index.
Actually, I take back what I said about data points not being perfect regarding #1- this is as close to a perfect data point as there is, which demonstrates that the SEC has no equal. I rest my case.
