All eyes were on Texas Friday night, as the Longhorns represented the SEC‘s last hope of avoiding being shut out of the national championship game for the second straight year.
And they failed, losing to Ohio State, 28-14, sending the Buckeyes to the title game against Notre Dame.
This leads me to this question: can the SEC rule college football when Alabama does not rule the SEC?
Because, if you think about it, it hasn’t happened.
Texas and Oklahoma were granted spots in the SEC back in 2021, kicking off the latest round of conference realignment.
The Big Ten ended up the big winner here, with the Ohio State vs. Notre Dame game being played in Atlanta, smack in the middle of the backyard of the SEC.
Let’s not forget last season’s national championship affair, which pitted Michigan against current Washington, which debuted in the Big Ten this season.
For counting purposes, three of the last four finalists hail from what now appears to be the SEC’s big brother, the Big Ten.
Texas was practically gifted a spot in the title game that started with the two lowest-ranked teams in the field of 12.
The Longhorns struggled to put away Clemson, stumbled past Arizona State, and then played the semifinal game in their home state.
It’s almost as though the TV gods wanted to ensure an SEC presence in the national championship game.
Oops.
The SEC had three schools in the 12-team field: Tennessee, Georgia and Texas. Only the Longhorns managed a win.
Is this a one-off for the SEC, or is this reality sitting in?
Let’s look at the current landscape of the conference.
The face of the SEC, Nick Saban, is gone. The rumor mill has Kirby Smart of Georgia and Texas coach Steve Sarkisian at least sniffing around the NFL.
Who could blame them?
Roster stability and salary control are more stable in the NFL and fall under the umbrella of well-paid general managers.
In the NFL, coaches coach.
And now to the dirty little secret of college football: everybody can pay players now.
The SEC is no longer the only conference with overzealous boosters giving away money like Halloween candy.
And that dreaded transfer portal works two ways: it gives, and it takes. And it has mostly taken away from the SEC’s talent level.
Don’t believe me?
Did you see Georgia’s quarterback, Carson Beck, signed with the Miami Hurricanes of the ACC?
Beck entered the transfer portal after announcing his plans to enter the 2025 NFL Draft earlier.
Beck will make more at Miami for one season than as a rookie in the NFL.
Let that sink in for a second.
I seldom follow high school recruiting, but I found this interesting: the top three and seven of the top 10 high school recruiting classes don’t belong to the SEC.
Now, getting back to Nick Saban: is it possible that Saban alone is responsible for all the hullabaloo regarding the SEC?
So, I went back to the record books for some answers.
From 1998 through 2022, the conference won 15 national titles.
That’s right, 15 in 25 years.
Alabama won six of those.
And guess what? They were all won under Saban.
Heck, for good measure, Saban added a seventh at LSU.
Saban practically forced the rest of the conference to step up or get trampled.
The SEC could be looking down the same gun barrel as the ACC in basketball.
Who’s stepping up now in the SEC coaching ranks?
Smart at Georgia, who could quickly jump to the NFL, is a candidate, but beyond that, it’s slim pickings.
Before officially writing the SEC obituary, remember that football is too important for the SEC to go away quietly.
While Texas’s loss to Ohio State has undoubtedly left the conference wobbling, the narrative that the SEC is the best conference is dead could be premature.
But any thoughts of the SEC’s vast dominance are dead.
And that’s not a narrative.
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