For years, the Southeastern Conference ruled college football with an iron fist, earning them the distinction of top league in the sport. There was a time in the mid-2010s where some pundits humored a shift toward the Big Ten, but that narrative swiftly perished somewhere between 2019 LSU and 2022 Georgia.
However, in the years since the latter, all people have been able to talk about is how the SEC reign of terror has ended, and more upsettingly, all the SEC can do is insist it hasn’t.
Now listen, I’m in the opinion business, so I’m all for agreeing to disagree…something else I’m in the business of though, is substantiating opinions with fact and observation, and that is why I refuse to sit around while social media runs rampant with SEC propaganda just days after official SEC figureheads did the same.
Let’s rip off the mask once and for all, shall we? The SEC is not the top conference in college football TODAY. I stress the word “today” to the best of my abilities because Southeastern homers conveniently forget it in all of their rebuttals.
Speaking of which, what all do we hear in those rebuttals? Most commonly, we hear about ancient history, we hear about ratings, we hear about NFL draftees, and we hear about depth (we used to hear about the knack for producing annual title contenders, but that approach has been put on hiatus for obvious reasons). I wish to work my way down this list, killing each argument one after the other, just as the dwindling number of sane people online have been working around the clock to do.
1. Ancient History
Whenever someone mentions the SEC’s active title drought, their fanboys mention their inactive title streaks…why do they do that? If you’re freezing to death, thinking back to the times you were warm isn’t gonna save ya. In other words, if we’re talking about—again—an active drought (and I say “drought” because that’s statistically what it is), the days of Tim Tebow or Cam Newton hold absolutely no water.
2. Ratings
This one’s another logical head-scratcher, as popularity obviously doesn’t equal strength, but what makes the argument worse is just how detrimental it would be if ever applied on a systemic scale. Are ratings really what you want outweighing all other metrics, to the point of on-field performance, consistency, deservingness, and whatever else taking a back seat? College football is too much of a popularity contest as is; stooping any lower would worsen the experience for fans of any non-blueblood.
3. NFL Draftees
To the SEC’s credit, their annual turnout in the NFL Draft is admirable and undying—too bad it changes nothing about their actual performance. Don’t believe me? A 4-8 Florida (that lost to USF) managed to produce seven draft picks this year. A 5-7 Auburn produced five, a 5-7 Kentucky and 2-10 Arkansas (the latter of which lost to Memphis) each produced four…need I go on? Your talent is only as good as the winning you do with it, no matter how many names you have called in April.
4. Depth
This is a big one. Everyone and their mother talks about how it’s suddenly not the constant winning that decides conference supremacy, it's the depth, and they say this as if it’s some “gotcha” because the B1G depth is nowhere near that of the SEC…right? Wrong. In fact, it’s so wrong that it’s probably the worst argument of these four when it comes to raw falsehood. For reference, how many bowl teams did the SEC have last year? 11 (including five-win Mississippi State). The B1G had 12 (no five-winners necessary). What about teams of eight wins or more, as eight wins is a standard I’d argue most would agree meets the title of “decent?” The SEC had nine—as many as the B1G. Even if you insist that the SEC’s depth is better (a take that fellas like Iowa and Illinois waste no time combatting), do you really expect anyone to take it over the B1G’s when theirs has natties coming with it? C’mon now.
It’s a shame I have to be so rude, as the SEC is still an undoubtedly great league, one that was the best yesterday, and very well could be the best tomorrow, but all facts point to not being the best today. The first step I’d recommend for changing that is, believe it or not, to learn from Curt Cignetti. He talked about how good he was in 2024 before his Hoosiers got exposed. He then did less talking, more doing, and climbed his way to the top. Take notes, SEC; the best workers work in silence so their results can speak for them.
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