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Dan Wetzel
Before the Rose Bowl, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti was asked about preparing his players to face Alabama and its considerable «mystique.»
«Our guys just know what they see on tape,» Cignetti said.
Translation: This Alabama team just isn’t that good.
Indiana would go on to dominate the Tide 38-3. It propelled not just the Hoosiers to the national semifinals to play Oregon, but left college football to wonder not merely what happened to the once-mighty Crimson Tide, but the SEC as a whole.
After decades of clearly establishing itself as the nation’s best conference, both the top-end excellence and the depth of the league have fallen. The SEC’s hopes now rest with Ole Miss, which is still going through coaching shake-ups and distractions heading into its semifinal matchup with Miami.
It’s not that the SEC isn’t still «good» or even capable of winning a national championship — Ole Miss might very well do it. Top to bottom, it might still be the best league, with the majority of schools all-in on football.
That said, the days of complete domination, all-SEC title games or deep, juggernaut teams are clearly gone, perhaps forever. This isn’t the same.
The SEC ruled the old era of college football, where rosters were built through high school recruiting that favored proximity first, followed by opulent facilities and rabid fan bases.
It was perfect for the SEC since the Southeast was rich with talent, and league schools invested heavily in infrastructure while playing in front of massive crowds (some of whom might have been willing to offer some under-the-table sweeteners).
The new era of direct revenue sharing, the transfer portal and NIL possibilities, has caused talent to disperse, weakening depth as athletes seek playing time, opportunity and out-in-the-open money.
Suddenly the great teams aren’t as great, and the rest of the teams are better.
«This is the most fun I’ve ever had in coaching because you know you’re on a more equal playing field,» Illinois coach Bret Bielema told ESPN on Tuesday. «The introduction of the portal, NIL and revenue sharing, is the most game-changing development in my 32 years of coaching.»
Bielema took over at Illinois in 2021 after previous stops at Arkansas (2013-17) in the SEC and Wisconsin (2006-12) in the Big Ten. He has won 19 games during the past two seasons.
«It’s hard when you would do what you have to do as long as you possibly could and in the end, sometimes it just didn’t matter,» Bielema said of trying to recruit back in the day. «Now you just come to work every day knowing that blue blood, red blood, orange blood, whatever, everybody’s got a chance, man.»
That’s why Bielema says that while he understands why so much focus is on the SEC stepping back of late, this really applies to everyone.
He notes that he just signed the best recruiting class of his entire career, including when he led Wisconsin to three league titles. He even flipped a running back on signing day from Alabama. «I’ve never been able to do that,» he said.
Where power programs — and the SEC had more than any other league — could once hoard talent, both improving their roster and starving others, now the gap is smaller. Almost anyone can pick off a high school recruit or two. Then the transfer portal steps in. The days of Alabama having four first-round pick wide receivers, like it did in 2019, are over. Kirby Smart and Georgia can’t have a two-deep defense full of future NFL stars like it did during their back-to-back titles.
«The second [string] guard at a university doesn’t want to be the No. 2 anymore,» Bielema said. «He wants to be a starter, so he’ll leave. That is unprecedented.»
During the BCS era (1998-2013), the SEC won nine of the 16 championships, including seven in a row from 2006-2012. In the 10 years of the four-team playoff, the SEC went 16-6, with two of those losses coming in SEC vs. SEC title games. Alabama, Georgia and LSU combined to win six championships.
The past two national champions (Michigan and Ohio State), however, hail from the Big Ten. With Oregon and Indiana matching up in one semifinal, that league is guaranteed a spot in a third consecutive title game. Penn State, meanwhile, reached the semis last season.
The SEC is just 4-9 this postseason (bowls included) and just 2-7 against teams from other conferences. The Big Ten is 9-4. The ACC is 8-4. While bowl results only carry so much meaning these days, the starkness of the numbers is notable.
After all, the SEC has built much of its brand on being superior to all others — commissioner Greg Sankey was lobbying for seven SEC schools to appear in this year’s playoff (five got in). Postseason losses suggest perception wasn’t reality — middle-of-the-pack SEC teams such as Vanderbilt, Missouri and Tennessee all went down.
The SEC has benefitted from circular reasoning (when top SEC teams win league games, it’s a sign of strength at the top; when they lose league games, it is a sign of the conference’s unmatched depth). But the most undervalued segment of the sport might have been the middle of the Big Ten and ACC, notably Iowa (which defeated Vanderbilt) and Illinois (which beat Tennessee).
No one would dare suggest that the SEC is doomed. If anything, it is just doubling down, even in unlikely places.
Former also-ran Vanderbilt is fully committed to winning now, for example. Kentucky, which once saw football as a way to pass the time before basketball, just spent $37 million to fire its coach and is investing heavily in the portal, including flipping Notre Dame quarterback Kenny Minchey from Nebraska.
The SEC remains the most popular league and most watched on television. The passion is there. The investment is there.
It’s just the new rules provide more opportunity at more places. Competition is fiercer, inside the league and out, which means the days of domination are likely over.
«Anybody can beat anybody these days,» Bielema said.
Even the SEC.
