The College Football Playoff picture was solidified yesterday, with Notre Dame delivering a suffocating, three-phase victory over the Georgia Bulldogs. It was a statement win for Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish, who appear to have significantly closed the gap between them and the top teams in the SEC.
That theme has echoed throughout this postseason. Despite the cries from the SEC loyalists when the playoff left out teams like Alabama, South Carolina, and Ole Miss, the results have largely justified those decisions. Alabama lost to 7-5 Michigan in embarrassing fashion, while South Carolina also fell to Illinois.
The teams that did make the playoffs didn’t perform much better, either. Ohio State walloped Tennessee in a game in which they looked completely outmatched. Georgia fell by two scores to Notre Dame, and while Texas still remains as the lone SEC team in the playoff, they’ve probably looked the least impressive of the bunch, playing a close game against Clemson and needing two overtimes to beat Arizona State, who would not have even been in the playoff if it wasn’t for automatic bids.
The last two decades of college football have been highlighted by SEC dominance. The conference is responsible for 14 national championships since 2003, with five different teams winning at least one. Alabama has won six. LSU has won three. Georgia and Florida each have contributed two, with Auburn winning one in 2010.
However, it’s impossible to ignore how the changing landscape has evened the playing field in recent years. NIL has allowed more teams the opportunity to poach the top players in the country, and the transfer portal makes it nearly impossible for teams to hold onto their depth pieces. The days of the top teams in the SEC having multiple lines of NFL caliber players are in the past, an advantage they’ve enjoyed during their lengthy run of success.
But beyond the rule changes, it’s impossible to ignore the retirement of Nick Saban. He completely dominated college football for more than a decade at a rate that nobody, even the other teams in the SEC, could compete with. Nobody was ever going to properly fill his shoes, and Kalen DeBoer certainly ran into his fair share of troubles in his first year as head coach of the Crimson Tide.
Kirby Smart and Georgia remain a force, despite somewhat of a down year this season, and Texas is headed in the right direction. However, the rest of the conference doesn’t quite look ready to compete at the highest levels.
While the gap has undeniably closed, declaring the end of the SEC’s dominance may be premature. The conference still boasts the biggest brands, deepest pockets, and most passionate fanbases in college football. Programs like Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Florida, Auburn, Georgia, and LSU have both the resources and recruiting power to adapt to the NIL and transfer portal era. No other conference has that kind of depth.
The unprecedented SEC dominance from 2003 to 2022 may not be replicated anytime soon. However, as programs adjust their strategies for talent acquisition and retention, it’s only a matter of time before the SEC reasserts itself as the standard in college football.
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Photo: Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire
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