Blame Alabama and Georgia. Point fingers at Auburn, Florida, LSU, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas, too.
The Southeastern Conference, once the most dominant league in the land, lost its stranglehold on college football over the last three years. The organization that boasts a combined 19 national championships since 1990 hasn’t even made the title game since Georgia won it all in back-to-back years to close out the 2021-22 seasons.
It’s a drought the league
desperately would like to end this season. But the path back to the top could be harder with the addition of a ninth conference game. Sure, it provides teams with an extra chance to prove they belong in the 12-team College Football Playoff.
It’s also another potential loss on postseason resumes.
“It creates, without question, the most demanding sets of football schedules in all of college football,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said last month. “No one has created the kind of weekly competition that exists in the Southeastern Conference. It’s competition that our fans will experience every week because we believe we’re the best conference in college football.”
The last three CFPs would say otherwise, especially when recalling no-shows by Alabama last year (against Indiana) and Tennessee (against Ohio State) the year before. The Big Ten has won three straight national titles.
The SEC is a combined 5-8 in the last three playoffs, with two of those victories coming against other league opponents.
SEC coaches were initially divided on a nine-game league slate but eventually agreed under the guise that the CFP would expand to 16 or 24 teams. It stayed at 12, and now league coaches are stuck with more daunting schedules and the same access to the lucrative postseason tournament.
“Like anything in this world, if you want to be really good at something, you got to take risk,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “There’s calculated risks involved in life that you have to take. … Is the juice worth the squeeze or not?”
The league will have a better idea in four months.
Ultimately, though, SEC success will be decided in the CFP. After all, the league went 54-8 against non-conference opponents in the regular season last year — including winning records against the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12 and the Big Ten — but ended up again watching the title game from afar.
Simply put, the SEC has been good but not great in recent years. Is the league lagging behind? Not even close. But the transfer portal and the ability to compensate players through revenue sharing as well as name, image and likeness deals have clearly minimized advantages the league enjoyed for decades.
“I think it’s great for the sport,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “I think having everybody competitive, more guys can be invited to the party and get to the party, mainly through the portal in a lot of ways. … It’s not a one-team dominant program. It’s really everybody.”
The SEC has plenty of star power, which provides hope of ending the Big Ten’s reign. Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, Texas quarterback Arch Manning and South Carolina stars LaNorris Sellers and Dylan Stewart are just a few of the guys who could make a difference.
Alabama receiver Ryan Coleman-Williams, Ole Miss running back Kewan Lacy, Texas receivers Cam Coleman and Ryan Wingo, Georgia defensive backs KJ Bolden and Ellis Robinson IV, and Auburn linebacker Xavier Atkins also are ones to watch.
The league has six new coaches in 2026, the largest turnover in league history. Arkansas (Ryan Silverfield), Auburn (Alex Golesh), Florida (Jon Sumrall), Kentucky (Will Stein), LSU (Lane Kiffin) and Ole Miss ( Pete Golding ) have new guys in charge.
None of the changes caused as much of a stir as Kiffin’s move from Ole Miss to LSU. But all of them should provide compelling storylines.
This is the first season since 2015 that no SEC team received a first-place vote in the AP Top 25 preseason poll. It’s an indication of how much parity there is in the league.
Nonetheless, Georgia (plus-280) and Texas (plus-300) are the betting favorites to win the SEC. Alabama (plus-850) and LSU (plus-850) are next, followed by Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Ole Miss at plus-1000.
Looking for a dark horse? Try Tennessee at plus-1800.
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