How the Southeastern Conference Will Kill Itself
It may not happen this season. It may not happen for three, five, ten seasons. But believe me: the Southeastern Conference will prove to kill itself.
I don’t mean as far as college football goes; the SEC is as good as it gets and is only growing stronger as college football’s elite conference. However, regarding their streak of championships, the SEC could eventually bring about its own demise.
Right now the Southeastern Conference is clearly the best conference in college football, and only about half of their conference is nationally relevant. Alabama (two-time defending national champions), Texas A&M, LSU, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are the only teams really on anyone’s radar going into the 2013 football season. Vanderbilt and Ole Miss are expected to make bowl games by beating who they should beat and losing to who they should lose to. It wouldn’t surprise Southeastern Conference fans if Tennessee, Auburn, Mississippi State, or Missouri made bowl games, but it wouldn’t shock them if they didn’t. Kentucky is a basketball school and Arkansas is rebuilding. The biggest shock last year in the SEC was Vanderbilt going 9-4; now it is expected that the Commodores win 7 or 8 games.
There is no reason to expect anything else from the Southeastern Conference this season. It will be a competitive league, with every game holding significant weight for each contender. The winner of the conference championship game in Atlanta will be a lock to play in the BCS Championship Game. However, let’s think about it down the road.
For now, we’re going to assume that in the near future, the top six contenders (as mentioned above) will remain just as relevant as they are now. Then, taking a look at future recruiting classes (and assuming they pan out as predicted), Tennessee, Ole Miss, and Kentucky (!) will all be contenders in the near future. According to Rivals.com, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ole Miss all have top 10 recruiting classes for 2014 as of right now, coming in at #1, #5, and #10, respectively. It is incredible that three Southeastern Conference teams that aren’t contenders, either historically or recently, have top 10 classes. A lot could change, but still.
Then you have Vanderbilt, a team that James Franklin has made relevant for seemingly the first time ever. He has already won 7 and 9 games in his first two years, and he hasn’t even gotten his own players on the field yet. Vanderbilt comes in at #19 and could jump even higher if they win 8 or 9 games this season. Franklin is building a monster in Nashville that people never saw coming; if he can knock off a Florida or Georgia this season, the Commodore program will only get bigger.
Auburn should also be a contender soon, despite the uncharacteristic 3-9 season a year ago. Gus Malzahn has Tiger Nation excited as he returns to be the head coach for a school that won a national championship in 2010 with him as the offensive coordinator. Auburn’s class ranks as #20 in the 2014 rankings.
This brings me to my next point: with so much talent in one conference, it could become common for the SEC Champion to have two losses while being crowned champion. Especially if the league schedule expands to nine games, which is a very real possibility. Despite the Southeastern Conference champion being the best team in college football according to the eye test, a two or three-loss Alabama would be lucky to make the new four team playoffs compared to undefeated or one-loss teams from the other power conferences. Is it fair? Absolutely not. But I don’t recall a time when college football was 100% fair.
It’s not right that the Southeastern Conference could eliminate itself from contention in the future college football playoffs. However, unfortunately, it isn’t necessarily out of the question.