For nearly a decade, the Southeastern Conference has been the superior college football conference in the United States.
That’s not just the sweet tea talking; that’s a fact.
Beginning with Florida’s title in 2006, SEC teams netted seven national championships in a row and appeared in the championship game for eight-straight years.
Elite conferences not only win titles but also have multiple teams capable of playing at a championship level in a given season.
If anyone doubts that the SEC checked that box, one would only have to look as far as the 2011 championship which pitted LSU against Alabama.
However, the South’s dominance of college football was nonexistent in 2016, and it’s clear the SEC is no longer head and shoulders above the other conferences.
Cue the salty tears from listeners of The Paul Finebaum Show.
The SEC was notorious for having multiple teams finish a football season with 11 wins. This year only one of its teams finished with more than 10 wins, whereas the rest of the “power five” conferences had numerous 10- and 11-win teams.
These power five conferences also demonstrated the depth that the SEC lacked.
Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Penn State, Florida State and Michigan all could have made impressive runs at the title had they been in the playoff.
I’d be hard-pressed to say the same about any team from the SEC that is not named the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Bowl season is another benchmark for measuring the strength of a conference.
The SEC usually led the pack in this category, but finished the year with a mediocre 6-7 postseason record.
College football experts thought their beloved Big 10 Conference would finally claim the top spot, but the conference’s 3-7 bowl record is almost as atrocious as Ohio State’s Fiesta Bowl performance.
In fact, after watching this year’s bowl games, the real winner appears to be the ACC. The conference finished with a 9-3 bowl record, and Clemson dethroned reigning champion and SEC powerhouse Alabama for the 2016 title.
This was the second time in four years that the ACC toppled the SEC in the national championship game, as Florida State broke the south’s championship streak when it defeated Auburn in the 2013 title game.
Fans of the SEC have also seen a recent decline in the conference’s coaching staffs.
The south used to have a monopoly on elite coaches. Once upon a time, Nick Saban, Les Miles, Urban Meyer, Steve Spurrier and Mark Richt were all coaching in the SEC in the same football season.
Now, the SEC’s household coaches are guys like Dan Mullen, Bret Bielema and Hugh Freeze who oversee the dumpster fire programs of Mississippi State, Arkansas and Ole Miss, respectively.
That statement may offend the fans of those programs, but watching their teams combine for an 18-20 record offended my eyes.
It’s clear the SEC is not the same conference that owned the ranks of the college football world. The question is will SEC fans admit this, or will they continue to cling to the success of Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide?