Over the past several decades, the SEC has been the most dominant college football conference in the country. Between 2006 and 2022, the SEC won 13 of the 17 national championships, with Florida, LSU, Auburn, Alabama, and Georgia all winning national titles.
However, three-time national champion head coach Urban Meyer thinks that dominance has come to an end.
Last season, the Michigan Wolverines defeated Alabama in the semifinals and went on to beat Washington in the national championship game. This season, Tennessee and Georgia fell in decisive losses to northern powers Ohio State and Notre Dame, respectively, while Alabama and Ole Miss were left out of the field completely.
To make matters worse, Alabama lost their bowl game to Michigan while South Carolina lost to Illinois.
The only SEC team to make the semifinal this season is Texas, and this is their first season in the SEC.
Needless to say, it seems like the SEC’s dominance is coming to an end. At least, that’s certainly what Urban Meyer thinks.
“Is the SEC’s dominance over? It is. It’s over,” Meyer said. “Now, next year’s another year. But for two years, it’s over.”
During the most recent episode of his Triple Option podcast, Meyer said that he felt Notre Dame and Ohio State had “much better athletes” than Georgia and Tennessee. Meyer called SEC teams “non-factors” in the playoff this season outside of Texas, which just joined the league this season.
Meyer thinks the Big Ten has closed the gap against the SEC.
“The upper echelon Big Ten Conference schools have really jumped on — as far as recruiting — you saw the Wolverines last year were one of the most dominant programs of the last decade,” Meyer said. “The Buckeyes right now have the best roster, I don’t think it’s close, in college football. You got Penn State that’s really put together a hell of a team. And then you have Illinois beating South Carolina. Think about that.”
We’ll have to see if this trend continues in the coming years.
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