Urban Meyer Has Blunt Message About SEC Amid CFP Struggles
After a multiple decade-long reign as the dominating force of college football, the SEC has quickly fallen from grace over the past couple of seasons.
The once infinitely wide talent gap that saw the rosters of the SEC programs seem untouchable by the other conferences has now evaporated as college football is as deep as ever. On top of that, the postseason success that fans had grown so accustomed to, with the conference winning 13 of the last 18 titles, also appears to be trending in the wrong direction as well.
There is just one SEC team remaining in the 12-team College Football Playoff, which happens to be a Texas Longhorns program that was in the Big 12 last season. The other two programs that made it in, the Tennessee Volunteers and Georgia Bulldogs, were each blown out by double-digits and bounced out of the playoff.
A development that has many fans and analysts alike beginning to think that the conference’s days of ruling the sport are done. Something that former Florida and Ohio State coach Urban Meyer agreed with on a recent episode of “The Triple Option” podcast following the No. 2 seed Bulldogs’ 23-10 blowout loss to the No. 7 seed Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
“It really wasn’t close the Georgia game,” Meyer said. “Notre Dame had better athletes. They were a much better football team. The question is…Is the SEC dominance over? It is, it’s over. Now, next year’s another year, but for two years (2023 and 2024), it’s over.”
Former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer.
© Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK
It also doesn’t help the SEC’s case that two of the three teams they felt were snubbed from the playoff, Alabama and South Carolina, each lost their bowl games to Big Ten programs they were ranked higher than. The Big Ten as a whole is 4-1 this postseason against the SEC, and teams around the country have been able to even the talent acquisition playing field with NIL and the transfer portal.
Now, it’s still highly possible that a couple of SEC teams could run the table next season and end this argument, but as of now, the notion that the SEC is clearly better than everyone is no longer applicable.
