Hello college football fans. Since the inception of the BCS championship for the 1998 season (played in January 1999 with Tennessee topping Florida St), there have been 23 championship games (BCS or CFP). After that first season, the SEC did not make the BCS championship game for the next 4 years. Florida St (ACC), Oklahoma (Big 12), Miami FL (Big East), and Ohio St (Big Ten) beat Virginia Tech (Big East), FSU, Nebraska (Big 12), and Miami FL (Big East), respectively. Then in the 2003 season, LSU beat Oklahoma. The next 2 years had Southern Cal (Pac-12) win a now-vacated game over Oklahoma and Texas (Big 12) beat the Trojans. Then the streak began: Florida (2006 season), LSU (2007), Florida (2008), Alabama (2009), Auburn (2010), Alabama over LSU (2011) – the first SEC loss in the “championship” era, Alabama (2012). Then Florida St upended Auburn in the 2013 season championship for the first loss to a non-SEC team. Thus ended the BCS. In the 2014 season’s CFP championship game (played in January 2015), Ohio St beat Oregon. In 2015, Alabama beat Clemson, in 2016 Clemson returned the favor over Alabama. In 2017 a second all-SEC championship game with Alabama defeating Georgia. Then Clemson beat Alabama again in 2018. LSU beat Clemson is 2019 and Alabama beat Ohio St last year. Since the 2006 season, this is the 15th season out of 16 that an SEC team will play for the championship. It will be the 14th (12th time during that span) that an SEC team will be named Champion. This will be the 3rd time that 2 SEC teams faced each other in the title game. Let’s look at a breakdown of the conferences for the last 23 seasons.
| Conference | Record | Teams | Last championship | Last Appearance |
| Big East (now defunct) | 1-2 | Miami FL (1-1), Virginia Tech (0-1) | 2001 (Miami FL) | 2002 (Miami FL) |
| Independents | 0-1 | Notre Dame (0-1) | — | 2012 (Notre Dame) |
| Pac-12 (win vacated) | 1*-3 | Southern Cal (1*-1), Oregon (0-2) | 2004 (Southern Cal)* | 2014 (Oregon) |
| Big Ten | 2-3 | Ohio St (2-3) | 2014 (Ohio St) | 2020 (Ohio St) |
| Big 12 | 2-4 | Nebraska (0-1), Oklahoma (1-2), Texas (1-1) | 2005 (Texas) | 2009 (Texas) |
| ACC | 4-4 | Florida St (2-2), Clemson (2-2) | 2018 (Clemson) | 2019 (Clemson) |
| SEC | 13-5 | Tennessee (1-0), Florida (2-0), LSU (2-1), Alabama (6-2), Auburn (1-1), Georgia (0-1) | 2020 (Alabama) | 2020 (Alabama) |
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Of note: both Big East teams are now in the ACC, the only Big Ten team to play for a championship in the last 24 years! is Ohio St, and of the Big 12 teams that have made it to the final game, Nebraska moved to the Big Ten and the other two are moving to the SEC. No other conference has a winning record in the title game. The SEC is 11-3 against other conferences (all 3 losses to the ACC). You may not be a fan of the SEC. You may despise them. You may think the odds are stacked in their favor in some odd way, but in the last 24 years (counting the game tonight), the SEC has made 20 appearances (3 2-team games and only 6 non-appearances). The closest any other conference can come to that was the 1999 season game between teams that are both in the ACC now (Florida St and Virginia Tech). 5 different SEC teams (6 if Georgia wins tonight) have won championships – more than any other conference has wins at all. Love the SEC, hate the SEC, just try to beat the SEC when the game matters.
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The big game is tonight, but let’s back up before the prediction and talk about North Dakota St’s 14-1 (57) shellacking of Montana St 12-3 (93) by a score of 38-10. It was 28-0 at the half and the Bison rushed for 380 yards. On the one hand, if the Mountain West ever wanted to add a team, NDST would be ready to move up. On the other hand, it’s clear a Group of 5 team will never win a championship (at least until the change the format and then, let’s face it, it won’t happen), so why give up the trophies? Congratulations to the fans and fantastic team from Fargo who won their 8th title since 2011.
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In just a few minutes, the CFP championship game will kickoff (it’s nearly 8:00 Eastern) in Indianapolis. The top 2 teams in the country face off both13-1. Georgia (1) lost on to Alabama (2) in the SEC championship. They lost badly. They turned around and made a really good Michigan team look like they didn’t belong in the playoffs. Alabama lost only to Texas A&M 8-4 (32) during the regular season and rang midnight for Cincinnati in a very rude way. Both semifinals were blowouts. When the Bulldogs have the ball, they bring the 7th best OER (Offensive Efficiency Rating) of 155 (they score 15.5 points for every 10 points their opponents normally allow) and face a Crimson Tide DER (Defensive) of 160 (they give up 10 points for every 16.0 their opponents normally score) good for 18th in the nation. When the Elephants are on offense, they bring an OER of 171 (2nd) but will face the best defense in the country with a DER of 304 (that’s even after giving up 41 to the Tide in the first matchup). Can any team beat this caliber of an opponent twice? When the Aggies beat Bama earlier this season, it was the first ever win for a former assistant against Saban. Can lightning strike twice in the same season? This has the earmark of a hard-fought game. Vegas thinks so with UGA -2.5. That sounds nearly exactly right as the GCR has UGA to win 55.3% of the time (roughly a field goal).
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Kickoff is coming soon. Love the SEC and what they’ve done. Hate the SEC and envy what they’ve done. Either way, enjoy this game that is the highlight of a challenging football season and cheer these student athletes as they strive for the classification of “best”. Thanks for reading. G
