For the third consecutive year, the College Football Playoff National Championship Game will not feature a team from the Southeastern Conference. Since it’s inception in 2014-15, the CFP has seen at least one SEC team participate in the title game eight times – all eight coming consecutively from 2016-23.
For the conference where “It just means more,” a three-year absence from the biggest game of the year must hurt more too. But the slump won’t last forever, or could it?
Realistically, the SEC will win another national championship at some point. However, it’s no longer the juggernaut it once was and even the perennial contenders at the top of the standings are the most vulnerable they’ve ever been. That’s because the rest of the college football world has caught up on the most important part of the playing field: Money.
SEC should get used to less national titles with newfound CFB parity
The undefeated Indiana Hoosiers are exhibit A of how college football has evolved into a whole different animal. Once “Name, Image & Likeness” (NIL) payments were essentially legalized, followed by the transfer portal and revenue sharing, the rest of the sport was basically given the green light to do what the SEC had built its legacy on.
Everyone knows the SEC was paying players before paying players was legal
Coach O with an incredible response on @BussinWTB 😂😂
— Will Compton
“Back then, we used to walk through the back door with the cash, now we walk through the front door,” former LSU head coach and 2019 CFP national champion Ed Orgeron told “Bussin’ With The Boys” in December.
Coach O said the quiet part out loud and now the SEC has to deal with the fact that it’s no longer the best at luring all the top talent during what has become college free agency.
Despite Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti building his contender with no five-star recruit transfers and nowhere near the size of the wallet other Big Ten and SEC teams have, the Hoosiers rising star signals the end of southern dynasties.
A Big Ten team has won the national championship in the previous two years since the SEC last vied for the crown (Michigan, Ohio State). And now a third looks poised to do so if not Miami, an ACC team left for dead until the final CFP rankings.
SEC fans should be prepared for fewer trophies in their future, even if the conference somehow finds a way to align with the Big Ten and secure four auto-bids into an expanded CFP bracket. There were five representatives this season and only one made it to the semifinals.
Increased access for one conference will not guarantee a greater chance at a championship like the SEC wants. Yet the parity we’re seeing develop in college football (half of the quarterfinalists had never qualified for the CFP before) suggests greater access for more leagues is on the way. That will leave the SEC with a steeper hill to climb year in and year out than it’s used to when trekking for college football’s summit.
